Library – Karen Creamer Author, Coach, Speaker

The power of one

December 14, 2016December 14, 2016 by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, author, book reviews, books, family, friends, Holidays, local fun, writing

I have been giving a lot of talks at local libraries. For my most recent one, I personally invited and Facebook invited a lot of people.

A lot.

Plus, it was a full moon in Gemini (my sign)! At 7:05pm! And my talk started at 7:00PM!

I know this is a busy time of year for us all, but I was expecting at least 10 people or so.

When it 6:59pm and still no one had come, I began to consider that maybe I had saturated my geographic location.

If no one came (as I have heard sometimes happens, but thankfully had never happened to me), my Plan B was to have my husband make a video of me reading so I could post it on my YouTube Channel (still evolving–don’t judge it). At least this would be time well spent, right?

What I learned: Don’t accept a time slot that starts when the library is CLOSED. Duh. I’m not sure why they even did that… oh, wait. Yes, I do. I took the slot because I was hoping to sell a lot of books before Christmas, and this was the only December slot they had. They had one slot available in January, but I thought people might not come out in the cold when they weren’t possibly out already, shopping for the holidays (books make great gifts!). Note: the temperature was in the 20’s last night.

And then, at 7:05pm, one person came into the room.

My audience had arrived. She probably didn’t really feel like going out, but she wanted to support a fellow writer/author, and guess what?

SHE DID.

Thank you again, Katherine. ❤

For some reason, this song was in my head on my way home from the event, so I am including it here for your listening pleasure:

Top 10 tips (I think!) for having successful author reading

November 29, 2016 by Karen, posted in author, books, local fun

As I mentioned in my prior blog post, there is a definite learning curve to this whole ‘promoting your book’ thing. The biggest lesson I’ve learned is this: assume nothing! (Remember Felix Unger’s lesson on what happens when you ASSUME?!).

Anyway, here are what I think are the top 10 tips (in no particular order) for having a successful (eg: well attended) author reading.

Create a Facebook event (you can figure it out; it’s not hard) and then share it on your own page, your author page, and the pages of any friends that will have you.
Make an author page on Facebook, if you haven’t done that yet.
Design some flyers (this can be as simple as a photo of your book, the date, time, and place of your event) and put them up around the town where you’ll be speaking (grocery stores, hairdressers, health food stores…any place that has a community bulletin board).
Ask the person with whom you book your event to send out a press release to any and every newspaper that they can.
Write a press release, so it will be ready when you need it. This can be as simple as your (short) bio, your book title and a little about it, and again the date, time, and place of your talk.
Word of mouth is your friend: tell people and ask them to tell people: their friends, their families.
Make sure you bring business cards, book marks, and any other promotional materials you’ve got to every talk and/or signing you do.
Consider offering a ‘free gift with purchase’ to your book buyers. This doesn’t need to cost you much at all. In my book, there is an Italian grandmother who makes the best gravy in the entire world, so I gave out a recipe for it (from my own Italian Nana, whose recipe really IS the best in the entire world) as a bonus gift.
It doesn’t ever hurt to have chocolate spread out around your book. As people reach for the chocolate, you are also drawing their eyes (and hands!) toward your book!
If you are doing a library talk, they usually will have a sidewalk easel to put out to alert people about your event. Make sure they use it for you!

That’s all I have for you today. Please comment below if you have any additional tips that have worked for you!

Library book sale

July 31, 2013 by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, books, family, friends, teens

My daughter and I ventured into new territory together last year when we volunteered together for the Friends of the Wells Public Library annual fundraising book sale.

We had such a good time volunteering last year that we are planning to do it again this year.

We mostly sorted and carried books to their proper spots on the tables that we helped to set up first thing in the morning. There were plenty of people of all ages there helping out along with us, including The Boy Scouts!!!

This years sale is scheduled for Saturday, August 10th from 10am -2pm and (you guessed it!), for some reason they need more volunteers than just me and Izzy. If you are so inclined and are local and want to help out, just email Susan at susan.layne1@gmail.com. Currently volunteers are still needed from 12pm-3pm on both Friday and Saturday.

If you come to help us, bring something to drink, like a big bottle of water (or maybe keep a cooler in your car with some cold drinks and an ice pack if you are planning to stay a while-hint! hint!). Also, a granola bar or two for you teenagers wouldn’t hurt (because God forbid you eat an apple or something).

If you don’t have time to help, consider coming to shop!!! Spending your money at the book sale will also be appreciated! The book sale is Saturday at the Wells Junior High School in the gym.

Remember (like Susan says): Many hands make light work!

See you there!!

Summer vacation (day 4)

August 29, 2011August 29, 2011 by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, books, family, italian, local fun, yoga

Broke with routine and went to a second yoga class at Windsong Yoga.
Housework (like taxes, no one gets a vacation from that!).
Finished the book I was reading, Oxygen by Carol Wiley Cassella; didn’t like the ending much.
Spent an hour at the library leafing through magazines. Fun for free! 🙂
Sea Dogs game at Hadlock Field. Ate Italian Sausage with peppers and onions, french fries, 1/3 of a pretzel, ice cream sundae. Bleah.
Found the copy of The 17 Day Diet by Mike Moreno that I bought at the library book sale a few weeks ago. Sigh. Will peruse.