Appearances
Festivals and personal appearances
A fee, a train ticket, a signing table, and a room full of people who already like books.
Literary festivals, library talks, bookshop events, and panels are the public half of a private job. Some pay a proper fee; some pay in 'exposure' and a glass of warm white. The money, when it is real, is for your time on stage. The quieter money is the pile of copies you sell at the table afterwards, often at full price, often signed.
- Typical pay
- From unpaid (plus a book stall) to a few hundred pounds for a local event, to four figures for a headline or a well-run festival. Always plus travel, if you have any sense.
- Ceiling
- Solid ceiling
- Speed
- First money in months
- Effort
- A real extra job
- Needs
- Needs a book
How it works
- 01
An organiser invites you, or you (or your publicist) offer yourself with a talk that has a title.
- 02
You agree a fee, expenses, a technical rider if needed, and whether you or the venue sells books.
- 03
You turn up, speak, sign, and follow up with whoever bought a copy and gave you an email.
How to start
- 01
Build one talk that is not 'and then I wrote my book'. A subject, a story, a point.
- 02
The Society of Authors publishes suggested rates. Quote them without apology.
- 03
Say yes to the well-run small events while you wait for Hay to ring. A good twenty-person room is a practice studio.
Watch out
- 01
'We can't pay, but there will be lots of book buyers' is sometimes true and often not. Ask how many copies the last speaker sold.
- 02
Travel and a hotel can erase a modest fee. Cost the day, not the headline number.
- 03
You are not obliged to be entertaining at dinner afterwards. You are allowed to be tired.
I have done the Edinburgh Fringe, which is a postgraduate course in appearing in rooms of unpredictable size. A personal appearance is not a distraction from the writing. For many of us it is the first time the work feels like a job other people can see — and the first time they pay on the night.