Organising author events

Meeting a 'real' author or illustrator can be a really motivating and enjoyable experience for children and young people.

Young readers don't always realise books are written by 'real people' - or people who are still alive!

Much can be gained from a properly organised school visit in terms of inspiring children's creativity and confidence in their own writing skills. A great author event can also help turn children into readers, with children inspired to read the visiting author's books. An author event can also be organised to support an area of the curriculum you are studying. What would you like the children to gain from your event?

If you don't have a school librarian or unsure where to start with organising your event, you can chat with your local bookseller or local librarian to find out if you have children's authors local to the school.

You can also check you class's favourite authors online; most author websites have links to arrange school visits. Organisations like Authors Aloud and Authors Abroad also facilitate school visits (they charge a small fee for doing so, in addition to the author's fee) and they can help with information on how to make most of your visit.

"It's great to have a school that is enthusiastic, but organisation is the most important factor in whether or not an event will succeed," said one author when asked on what makes his visits a success.

Things to consider when you are organising an author visit to your school.

Why do you want to have an author visit the school? Is it to encourage reading & writing for pleasure, or to support an area of the curriculum? This will affect who you want to invite.

Decide if you want a physical or virtual event. Physical events are great for getting children excited about books, reading and writing - especially through whole school assemblies. Virtual events can work particularly well for smaller and class-sized groups, especially if you are linking to a particular theme or writing exercise.

If you want a physical visit, find out where the author is based before inviting them; you don't want to have unexpected hotel and travel costs to cover.  If they author is too far away, consider a virtual event - or a more local author.

Authors can provide a range of events, from assemblies and class events to workshops with small groups or up to 30 children; what would work best for you?  Are their less enthusiastic readers and writers who would benefit from a smaller session with the author?  Authors can also adapt their event to support the topics you are covering in class. Chat to them in advance to make sure you get the most from their visit.

Assembly-style author events usually run for 45 minutes, with 15 minutes for questions with the author, so an hour altogether, but this can be adapted to suit your timetable. The timings of smaller workshops will vary but authors can generally organised a workshop to fit in to your school timings.

How will you prepare the children for the event?  Sharing one of the author's earlier books with the children and finding out about them online is a great way to get the children excited about the event, and to encourage them to read the book(s) for themselves.

How will you inform the staff about the event and discuss what you all want to achieve from it?

Who will greet the author on the day, and who will look after them to make sure they know how to get to the right classroom or hall on time?

Children will often want to read the visiting author's books; how will you make copies available to buy or to borrow from the school or class library? Can you work with a local bookseller or the author themselves to order the author's books in advance, to sell on the day? Try to send out the book order form to parents, with a little information about the author and their book(s), well in advance of the event.

How will you manage the book signing? If you prefer the author to sign children's books straight after the event, you will need to have a table and chair available and teachers to organise the children. If the author is signing the books away from the children, you will need to organise book order slips or stickies on each ordered book. 

How will you follow-up the author event to make sure everyone gets the most benefit from it?