Book Reader’s Conventions?

The writer’s convention I attended recently did an innovation that I’m not sure many people would have thought of – they expanded their annual writer’s convention to include a reader’s convention.

It’s too soon to see how it worked out – innovations like this usually take about three years to spread the word. I think this is the kind of innovation worth duplicating nation wide.

Reader’s should be encouraged to attend writers conventions, and special events should be planned for them to participate in. Consider having a published author invited to speak to the readers, who never get to see the long process of writing a novel, and the endless editing and revision of it. The speaker can explain the writing process, and I’d recommend telling the readers how you got from your initial idea of the book and its characters to the final published form. Readers love this stuff, and an example of this is how many Tolkien fans know that World War One and Tolkien’s pursuit of long, ambling walks shaped the initial story. Or that it was initially conceived as one tremendously ponderous novel, and eventually split into three parts.

Speakers should prepare for the common questions – where do you get your ideas from? How did ou come up with X character? How did the book change from start to finish? If you prepare your talk well, you should end up with different questions at the end, instead of these.

To encourage readers to attend, writers should offer their books for sale at lower prices at the convention. If you’re self published, chalk this up to advertising. It doesn’t make an immediate profit.

But if you did your homework learning to write, inviting readers to the convention will yield long term career benefits.