7 Ways to Better Promote Your Literary Event
Reposted from the Literary Marketing Newsletter.
I’ve seen a lot of posts lately on Threads from authors talking about how common it is to have an event where no one shows up — which is actually very preventable. Why did that happen? Likely a lack of marketing.
As someone who’s covered the Boston literary community for over ten years, I’ve seen how everyone is promoting — or not promoting — their events. I’ve also run events where I both succeeded and failed dismally at promotion. So here’s some advice on how to promote a literary event, whether you’re an author, bookstore, or literary organizer.
1. Determine who your audience is and how they learn about events.
Promoting an event means getting the word out to the people who are going to attend. So where do they get their news? If your audience does not get their news from social media, don’t just post to social media. If you have a really dedicated newsletter following, post to your newsletter. If you’re targeting a younger audience, go to places like TikTok and Instagram instead of print media. I did an event once where my strategy was social media, but the organizers said that their community mostly attended events they saw on fliers in local shops. Again, any marketing starts with understanding the ideal audience.
2. Post early and often, and to multiple channels.
The marketing adage goes that it takes seeing something seven times for us to process it. That may not necessarily be true, but with the amount of content out there, it’s hard to even get on someone’s radar once. Very few people are going to see your event if you only post it once — it’s going to get lost in social media news feeds. And posting about the event the day before will guarantee that even the few who see it will already have previous plans.
So start posting as early as you can — at least a month in advance — and continue posting often on multiple channels, like social media, newsletter, press releases, etc. And if you’re contacting a media site like mine, do so in advance so I can get the event into rotation and in front of people’s eyes — don’t let me know the day before.
I remember attending a really cool local literary event, but that was not well attended. The organizer assumed no one was interested when they had actually only posted about the event once on social media. It wasn’t that people weren’t interested, it’s that they didn’t know about it.
3. Make sure there’s an event page that’s easy to get to — and share the link.
Make it easy for someone to learn more about your event by having the information easily available and accessible. (You would think this is common sense, but…) Ideally, this is on an event calendar or event page on your website, or as an event on Eventbrite. Some organizations post their events solely on social media, but remember that not everyone can access it. I unfortunately just had an instance where an author reached out to me to post an event they were having, but had to send me an event link to a local newspaper because the bookstore doesn’t post their events online — which is such a lost opportunity and detriment to the authors they host.
4. Have clear event design and messaging.
When you’re promoting your event, be sure that what the event is, who it’s for, when and where it is, and other key information is clear on both the event page and the graphic design. That means making it clear who the author is, what their book is, who the in-conversation-with is, and where and when the event will be. Too often I see two authors listed on the event as headliners…but it’s really one author’s event and the other is the in-conversation-with. Or websites rely on a graphic and not text, meaning it’s not able to be read by screen readers. There’s one local bookstore that crams so much text into their social posts and makes them odd colors that you actually can’t read the graphic — and thus have no idea what the event is. So be clear and simple in your messaging and design.
5. Create a press release and send it out.
Press releases seem like a daunting, complicated thing, but as someone who’s written press releases, they’re really just a resource of information for others. Write a press release that announces your event, tells a bit about the author, gives a summary of the book, provides some quotes, and gives all the details and contact information about the event. Then, send that press release to media sites, community newspapers, libraries, bookstores, interested organizations, or whoever else you think might be interested in and help promote the event. You can also include a link to a media kit, where people can find graphics to post on social media (that you create), book cover images, author images, reviews, and more.
6. Connect with the venue on marketing — but don’t rely on them.
This might be where the disconnect comes in. Authors assume the venue will do all the promotion and don’t do any — then show up to an empty house. There are plenty of venues (bookstores, libraries, etc.) out there that do GREAT promotion. But from my experience, don’t rely on it and take promotion into your own hands. For example, I had a friend who was doing an event at a local bookstore whose event manager was VERY excited about the event and had all these ideas for promotion, and then…never promoted it, and no one showed up. I had another friend who was doing an event with a local library and bookstore, relying on them to promote — and neither did. The library had even forgotten to put the event on their calendar! So, partner with the venue to determine who is doing what to market the event — and make sure it happens.
7. Invite people personally.
Finally, invite friends, family, coworkers, and acquaintances personally. We’re much more inclined to attend an event when we’ve been personally invited!
