This weekend, for the first time in years, I made it to both days of the Texas Book Festival. And I attended with a very specific goal: to observe what worked (and what didn’t) for authors with an opportunity to connect in person with their audience during readings, presentations, and panel discussions.
In other words, how did authors seem to help their cause — getting readers and book buyers to want to spend more time with them — and what might they have done differently?
In brief, here’s what I’ve culled from my notes, all of which I will certainly memorize and faultlessly execute (or avoid) when my time on stage comes:
What Worked:
- Being gracious to the person that introduced you.
- Speaking plainly, even bluntly, but also thoughtfully and enthusiastically.
- Giving the audience an opportunity to feel smart by asking questions that someone in the crowd is going to have an answer to.
- Being willing to risk appearing ridiculous.
- Smiling, laughing, and generally appearing animated, engaged, and self-effacing.
- Making eye contact with the audience — especially with the specific audience member whose question you’re answering.
- Using less than your allotted time.
- Being attentive to your co-panelists while they’re speaking.
- Having interesting anecdotes and turns of phrase at the ready.
- Sharing something with the audience that they didn’t already know.
- Being playful and self-aware when plugging your book.
- Addressing both the audience and your moderator/co-panelists when answering a question.
- Explaining without condescending.
- Allying yourself with your audience.
- When given the opportunity to talk about your own work, starting off by promoting someone else’s.
What Didn’t:
- Fighting a long, losing battle with a slide presentation that has decided to advance of its own accord, rather than handing the remote off to someone else and staying focused on your audience.
- Reading your own author credit (“by My Name Here“) aloud.
- Dropping a well-known name — and then emphasizing your intimacy with that person (and the audience’s lack of it).
- Commandeering a panel by taking up more than your share of the session’s time or the audience’s attention.
- Having a side conversation while another panelist or the moderator is speaking.
- Answering a question other than the one that was asked — without acknowledging that you aren’t answering the actual question.
- Making a speech during a panel discussion.
- Popping the top of a soda can while a co-panelist is responding to a question — especially when your microphone is on.
Greeat observations, Chris. I’ve been attending a lot of author events with an eye toward similar issues (what works and what doesn’t in an author presentation) and would add to your fine list of things to avoid this toughie: avoid knowing your material so well that your presentation comes off as canned or staged.
I attended a presentation on electricity at the Boston Museum of Science on Friday and the visual aids were spectacular. The presenter clearly knew his stuff and had some funny anecdotes and asides in his script (to break up the insightful discussion of lightening and how he was creating it indoors) … but his cadence was off (or maybe overly “on”?). He had clearly given this talk a hundred times, and he spoke it flawlessly, without a single pause or a misplaced breath. The result was, for me, frustrating. My brain was one step behind him the entire time … I knew his explanation was perfect, but I needed half a second more to process it. I suspect the other adults and children in the audience felt the same way.
Here’s the crux: how do you avoid this? Especially as a new author with one work out (for now!) and lots of presentations to give!? Pondering this keeps me awake at night …
Best,
Loree
I’m going to pull these out and review next time I’m in the situation. I tend to get nervous, and do all the wrong things, like forget what I’m talking about.
Oh, and ramblers bother me. You’re only up there a half and hour, maybe, so when one person gives a 10-minute introduction, when asked to keep it under a minute, it’s so not right.
Good observations, Chris. A related one: the good panelist sometimes lobs a softball for one of the other panelists to crush. This ties into paying attention to the other panelists and to praising the work of others. Basically, you channel your inner Johnny Carson for 10 seconds to set the other person up to shine.
Especially good: If you can call attention to something neat the other panelist has done that’s been overlooked. (E.g. an early book that hasn’t gotten as much exposure as more recent books.)
And since I’m diving in here, I have a couple of pieces of advice for Loree:
1. Unless you’re an unusually good presenter — with a bunch of experience already under your belt — you’re NOT going to have to worry about being over-polished for your first few dozen times giving a presentation.
2. When it does happen, you can/should keep evolving your presentation. Change up the order, add something new, take out something old, update it to talk about recent news/developments, use different examples to make the same points — whatever. Give yourself some sort of newness to deal with.
Also, in general: slow the heck down. Over-polished presentations often sound that way because they don’t have ordinary breathing room in them.
Hope this helps!