Building An Author HUB (or How can we sell more books?)

Authors, poets and wordsmiths abound in our communities. Some have the benefits of being members of the Society of Authors while others are looking through our window, contemplating a knock on the door.
The Nuts and Bolts
Auchenwoogly is a fictitious town in Argyll. In and around the town, there are sixteen people who have published a book. Some are illustrated children’s books; others poetry collections and then the novels historical and hysterical and some seriously researched factual books.
We need a SoAiS Facilitator in the area to seek out who they are and call them to a meeting. Word of mouth, Facebook etc. I am sure you will be able to identify them. The more the merrier.
The Plan
The purpose is to set a series of monthly meetings. Perhaps from September to May (don’t exclude an early December meeting for obvious reasons.)
The locus might be the town Library. This is likely to be a free venue and some floating library visitors might drop in too. A church hall or...you know your community.

The Nitty Gritties

Each writer brings along to the initial meeting their chosen book. Novelists swap their book with novelists and children’s authors with their own breed as with the poets too. They take their copy home read it and make notes about the book.
On the selected night, each duo questions their partner about their story; the characters; why this and why that? How many drafts were made; did you send it to an editor before publishing; how long did it take to appear as a book etc etc. (The audience like to know these details too.)


END RESULT

Your local community will have a well advertised series of talks taking place over the winter months learning about your books and meeting real authors. For those who have published many books, the programme can roll on over the next year.
The end result should be the jingling pennies in your pockets.

A Suggested Programme
An MC introduces the SoAiS Hub idea and then the speakers. He/She then invites the audience to slip a one line sentence into a slitted shoe box. A poet will make the contributions into a poem by the end of the night. The MC makes the evening flow and encourages audience participation when appropriate. The programme might be like this:
7pm Marie-Claire Baccarat and Paul Thirsk
Travel authors talking about each other’s book: Across the Sahara with a Temperamental Camel and Train Journeys in Mongolia and Ghana.
8 pm Coffee/tea break and chat.
8:15pm Tom McWhirter
A selection of his poems and what inspired his thoughts.
8:45pm Arnold Smith and Lucy Luckless
Novelists of: The Carnage of the Faithful and The Killer on the Cliff.
9:45 Pam Wakes the poet makes your sentences from the shoe-box come alive.
10pm All the books are on the table for the public to browse and purchase.
Thank everyone for coming and announce the next Hub meeting.
Tip. Ask all the authors to place a slip in each book with the author’s name, the book title and the cost. When the book is sold the vendor collects the slips. It makes paying out to the right author, the right amount, easy.
Any comments or questions to the Events Manger Miller Caldwell SoAiS
netherholm6.yahoo.com