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A podcast dedicated to demystifying the art and business of school author visits for authors, illustrators, educators, librarians, parents, and booksellers.

Hosts: Author, Bonnie Clark and Author-illustrator, Shanda McCloskey

Record a book review here! Use this handy guide if you'd like!

Produced by Ben McCloskey • Sponsored by AuthorVisitCentral.com

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  2. 22. Crafting Presentations Around Your Books (with Author Shelli R. Johannes)

22. Crafting Presentations Around Your Books (with Author Shelli R. Johannes)

Sep 1, 2022

Our topic today is all about crafting presentations and programs for school visits inspired by your books, with our special guest, author Shelli R. Johannes! 

During the talk, Shanda asks Shelli these questions…

  • Shelli, on your website you have a thorough menu of different author visit presentations that correlate with various books you’ve written. Such as: Shine Like a Unicorn - Great for anti-bully week! includes reading and discussion on standing out and not being afraid to be yourself. And Theo TheSaurus - Logophiles love reading and writing! Includes reading Theo and discussing how to fall in love with reading. Do you craft a presentation for every new book you write?

  • How do you go about crafting presentations? Do you use a formula that works for you?

  • How have educators responded to your various presentations? Are there any that are more popular than others?

  • I see that you also offer several professional development sessions. (This is a fairly new concept to me. We talked about it in our last episode with Lola Schaefer quite a bit.) Are you booking those sessions often? 

  • Do you offer writing workshops? Any that would require more than one session with the same students?

  • How do you handle book sales at your visits?

  • On social media, I noticed once that you posted honestly about your introvertness and sitting in your car right before a school visit and dreading that moment when you have to suddenly turn it “on”, walk in, and go perform. Does this happen to you every time? Do you relax once you start? This is an issue for so many of us creatives, so I’d love to go on a little tangent and talk about this.

  • What’s one thing you’ve learned over the course of doing school visits? Or what’s your main advice to other authors who are starting out.

  • Anything you wish I had asked?

Thanks for joining us , Shelli! That wraps up our 22nd episode all about crafting programs around your books with Shelli R. Johannes! 

You can find me at www.shandamc.com, on Twitter: @ShandaMcCloskey, and on Instagram: @shandamccloskeydraws.

Shelli, where can folks find you? https://www.srjohannes.com/

I’m so excited because for the very first time we had a kid (that I didn’t know) send in a book review! So here’s a special shout out to Ava! You made my day, kid! 

This podcast is sponsored by AuthorVisitCentral.com and produced by Ben McCloskey. And if you enjoyed this episode, pleeeease rate-and-review us! We may even read your written review (on Apple Podcasts) on the next episode!

We love to hear from our listeners. Feel free to leave comments, ideas, and even have your kid record a kid book review on AuthorVisitPodcast.com. We might use it as the kid book review on the next episode!

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Author Visit Podcast!

Resources and books mentioned in this episode (with affiliate links that help support this podcast):