Tips for Teachers: Author Visits Part Twelve – Book Sales
School visits can often involve book sales for the author. Most teachers are also delighted that the author will be bringing books to sell and sign for the children while they’re visiting the school.
If the author has order forms or other paperwork and sends them to you prior to their arrival, you can take the book orders, collect the money and everything can be extremely well organized. However, some schools do have very strict policies about selling anything to the students and prohibit promotion for commercial purposes. Make sure that you always confirm this kind of thing in advance to avoid any uncomfortable situations for the author when they’re at the school.
For my own school programs, once a visit’s confirmed, I send out order forms for the books, which most schools send home with the students just prior to my arrival. Consequently, parents can see what sort of books are available, even visit my website, so that those children interested in obtaining autographed copies remember to bring the correct payment while I’m at the school and so avoid disappointment. However, I make it very clear that this is entirely at the discretion of the school. I don’t expect to have a firm number of orders for books before I travel and always take a good supply of each title with me. I also ensure that I always ask if the school would like to purchase copies of my books for their library or if teachers are interested in class sets, usually at a discount.
As with all other aspects of a successful author visit, it’s always best to be prepared.
