1 Working with Authors

As Ally so beautifully put it, the League is back! We kicked off the spring semester by working together on a very special event: Marissa Meyer, YA author extraordinaire, came to Jackson, MS! Marissa's Lunar Chronicles has been a smash hit here at Lemuria and we were thrilled to host her. (Check out my friend Lizzie's post on Cinder and mine post on Scarlet)

Now, you may be asking, "What does that mean? How does getting an author work?" It really can work a number of ways, but it all comes down to who's paying for the event. Usually, if a school or library requests an author, an honorarium must be paid, as well as travel expenses and all publicity and sales are on the school to generate. However, when an author comes to a bookstore, the publishing house is paying for that author to go to different cities and promote their book. We at Lemuria cherish this marketing tool that the publishers give us. I mean, what better way to promote an author's book than with the author?

This is where the awesomeness of the League comes in, for while that author is in town, as the children's manager at Lemuria, it is my responsibility to get that author in front of as many people as possible, and often the store event just won't cut it. So I take that author into schools: FOR FREE. I know, crazy right? I complete my goal of selling books and audience, and the school gets a free author, something that usually costs thousands of dollars. And what is really cool about this whole process is that it is built on partnerships.

In the case of Marissa Meyer, we visited Ridgeland High School where she spoke to a very engaging group of 50 and then a classroom of 20. For the store event, the beautiful Ally helped me brainstorm and even talked to some of her teacher contacts to encourage teachers to give extra credit to students who attended the store event and voila! We had a successful event! (and yes, Ally and I on the far right have capes on:))