Recap: I Gave a Book Talk and It Went Super Well!

I just flew back to Japan, and boy are my arms tired *drum fill*

For those of you just joining me, last Sunday I gave a presentation and reading at MainStreet BookEnds, the independent bookstore in my hometown of Warner, New Hampshire, about what it’s like to live and work in Japan.  The owner had agreed to stock my Japan chapbook, Eikaiwa Bums, back in March, and offered to let me do a reading when I was back in the States.  I’d planned to come back for a three-week August vacation anyway, so doing a reading while I was back seemed like a great idea.

In the interest of showing you how the sausage was made, here’s a rundown of the entire event from start to finish:

 

Here’s What I Did to Prepare

Scheduling the reading so far in advance worked out well, since it gave me more time to mull over ideas for how to make it really kick-ass.  I knew that just reading from Eikaiwa Bums wouldn’t be enough since it’s such a short book, so I got the idea to do a bigger talk and a Powerpoint presentation about what it’s really like to live in Japan and work for an eikaiwa conversation school, like I did after I finished college.  Fittingly, I gave it what I hoped would be an attention-grabbing title: What’s It REALLY Like to Live and Work in Japan?

I knew I wanted to do some promotion in hope of getting a good turnout, and once again, planning the event so far in advance worked to my advantage.  I started by telling my family and close friends, then expanded to other friends I hoped to see during my trip: if I was talking to someone about meeting up, I’d mention the reading and let the person know that they were welcome to come in a way that felt natural and super low-pressure.  The point wasn’t just to fill seats or draw an audience, but to let people know about an event I thought they’d find genuinely fun and interesting.

I started really prepping back in July after I finished my hellish rush of early summer deadlines.  I checked in with the bookstore owner about logistics, sent some final messages to people who might be interested, then made a Facebook event and invited both the people I’d already talked to and a lot more that I hadn’t.  I kept the Facebook invites to people who were actually in the New Hampshire area, since getting mass Facebook invites to events in other time zones has always been a pet peeve of mine and I didn’t want to subject my friends and acquaintances to a similar annoyance.

I also made a color poster featuring some of my favorite Japan pictures to get people’s attention, and asked several businesses around town, including BookEnds, if I could hang it there.  Because I was still in Japan and the logistics of printing and hanging the physical poster proved difficult, I ended up asking my mother for help since she lives close by—if you’re reading this, Mom, I owe you a big thanks!

Though I’d planned to start the actual Powerpoint presentation in July as well, other work got in the way and I ended up assembling it the week before the reading by working on it in the mornings in my brother’s basement.  (Thanks to Kyle and Lisa for giving me the alone time!)  I was lucky enough to have this quiet space to work and actually practice speaking without being interrupted, but I felt antisocial working alone when I could have been seeing my family, and fairly stressed that I still hadn’t finished the Powerpoint.  Fortunately, a lot of that stress went away when I finally got it done.

When I speak in front of people I usually like to ad-lib, and prefer to practice a few times so I can get the rhythm of what to say and eliminate unnecessary tangents and rambling.  Because of the limited timeframe I only got to run through the actual presentation once, though I also did some mini-practice by looking the slides over and whispering quietly to myself the night before while the house was asleep.  Though the limited practice time didn’t affect my performance too much, I probably would have felt more comfortable had I done at least one more full run.

Finally, at the bookstore owner’s suggestion I came in a few days early to test my computer with the TV setup, since the last thing I wanted was to be stuck in front of a bunch of people fiddling with HDMI cables.  This also gave me a chance to meet the owner in person and hash out last-minute details, as well as see what the gallery space actually looked like since I hadn’t been there in a while.

 

The Big Day

I got to the bookstore an hour early—plenty of time to use the bathroom, set up the books I’d brought to sell, plug in my computer, and organize the final logistics.  It also gave me more time to make small talk with people who’d come early, since I hadn’t gotten to see a lot of them during my trip.

The actual reading went very well, if I do say so myself—people seemed interested, laughed in all the right places, and asked some really good questions.  I talked for about an hour, elaborating on the slides, sharing the reasons why I went to Japan in the first place, and telling stories about my former eikaiwa employer (which I don’t mention on this blog for secrecy reasons).  Then I read from Eikaiwa Bums for just under ten minutes and did a Q&A where five or six people asked questions.

I’d had no idea what to expect for a turnout—at the beginning of the talk I joked that when I started planning I half expected that only four people would show up and one of them would be my mother.  In actuality, the room was filled to capacity, with people standing in the back and crowded in the gallery doorway.  It felt really, REALLY good to have so many people turn out—the grand total was about fifty people, mostly ones I knew, but a few that I didn’t, which was also exciting.

Finally, after the Q&A I gave a shoutout to Blue Cubicle Press for publishing my work in the first place, then showed a slide with my website and social media contacts (the same Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter links I share at the bottom of every post).  I encouraged people to follow me, since it was free and having more followers helps me out a lot.

Last of all I plugged the actual books I had for sale: not only Eikaiwa Bums, but I also introduced the Erochikan zine collection in all its silliness and talked about the 2018 Concord New Hampshire Writers’ Project Anthology I’d edited and written the introduction for.  I stressed to the crowd that buying a book or two not only helped me out financially in a small way, but it gave me a HUGE confidence boost when it came to my ability to share my work and supported a great independent bookstore that was doing a lot for the community.  Again, encouraging people to actually buy my stuff in this way felt natural, and I wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t really believed the things I was saying.

After the reading I had a mob of people to talk to: a lot of people wanted books signed, there were others I hadn’t gotten to talk to before the reading, and a lot of people wanted to congratulate me.  I felt bad that I couldn’t give everyone my full attention, but managed to have a few really good conversations in that last half hour.

Finally, a few friends and I put the chairs away and reorganized the room the way we’d found it to help the bookstore staff—big thanks to Mike, Stu, Dan, and Tiff for the hand.

 

Final Thoughts

A lot of good things came from this reading, so here’s a quick summary:

• I did something a lot of people really enjoyed.  Above all, this was the most important thing.
• I got more of my writing out into the world.  A lot of the people who came were people who otherwise might not have read Eikaiwa Bums or my zines, so the talk was a gateway to sharing more of my work with people who would enjoy it.
• I taught people about Japan and Japanese life.  Learning new things is pretty awesome, after all.
• I made a great contact with a local bookseller.  Big thanks to Katharine Nevins for organizing the talk, spreading the word via the BookEnds blog and newsletter, introducing me, and handling the payment logistics—she seemed pleased that so many people came, and that they also spent money in the store ;-)
• I made some actual cash money.  I sold a lot of books and zines that day, which, after factoring in expenses, turned out to be a pretty decent profit, and the most I’ve ever made from my own writing (score!).
• I got a lot of confidence and practice doing a public event.  This is the other most important thing I got from the talk: I went through the actual steps of planning, assembling, promoting, and speaking, and improved my skills so that next time it’ll be a little easier.  Knowing that I could pull off an event like this also made me more confident that I can do it again—and that also means a hell of a lot.
• I made some mistakes and learned from them.  My biggest mistake by far was not eating a good lunch before the reading, since having an empty stomach distracted me while I was in front of the crowd.  I also wish I’d brought more water (my throat got REALLY dry near the end), asked a friend or two to take pictures of me presenting (d’oh!), and stocked all the books I had on the table from the get-go, since we ran out near the end and I had to scramble to grab more.

So that’s it—I wanted to share the play-by-play both for my own benefit (since reflecting always helps!), and so that others can gain some insight into how they might plan a book talk of their own.  Of course, any creative-type event is going to be different, but if reading about my experience has given you any ideas, by all means, feel free to steal them—I wouldn’t have written this if I didn’t want you to ;-)

 

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