Presentations and the Like

At one of the library visits I did, another author came and wanted to see what I did because she had her first library presentation coming up.

This latest set of library visits, the attendance hasn't been all that great, though a few have shown up. One visit, it was one person--but it happened to be someone I hadn't seen for ages, so we had fun talking and yes, she bought books.

But here is what I do. First I find out why the people came--are they interested in writing or reading. If it's reading, I ask questions about what they like to read, and some questions about them, and maybe the town they live in.

It it's writing, I ask them what they are writing or want to write and let them ask me any questions they might have.

And of course, I tell about my books, often what gave me the idea to write them. The process has worked well for me.

Recently I did a presentation for a writing group about writing mysteries. Because a lot of the time was taken up by their meeting and another guest who had a lot to say about an upcoming conference, I cut what I was going to say about mysteries short. I'd given out a hand-out with lots of information so instead of going over it, we planned a mystery together.

I've done that several times for all ages and it's lot of fun. We decide upon who/what the following will be:

The detective/sleuth and sidekick.
Location
The victim--why this person might have been killed.
Murder weapon or method of murder
Suspects--and why they are suspects. (I like to have at least four)

The audience comes up with various ideas and then vote on them.

I certainly engaged everyone and I kept their attention.

Authors, what have you done for a presentation that worked really well?
Readers, what kind of a presentation have you really enjoyed?

Marilyn

Blurry photo, but you get the idea. Though you can't tell the room was pretty full.