Author Collaboration for Book Events and Promotions: The Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How

Collaborating with fellow authors has proven to be a powerful way to boost your visibility, expand your audience, and create memorable experiences for readers. This does involve a bit of work on your end, but you’ll find it well worth it if you take the time and trouble to do it. And your fellow authors who are part of the collaboration will thank you!

It’s all about who, what, when, where, why, and how, not necessarily in that order.

Start with why

There are many reasons to collaborate with other professionals, and book authors need to begin thinking about this option for book events and promotions well before their book is published. A well-done collaborative event can:

Expand Your Reach: Whether it’s two authors, three, or more, having a connection to each other expands your reach. In this Writers and Artists article titled “4 reasons why writers should collaborate when marketing their books,” the author writes, “Each of the authors brought along a loyal group of friends and readers…adding up to a sizable crowd of people who love books!”

Share Resources & Costs: While you may be the ringleader, so to speak, when you work with other authors to prepare your event, you have the benefit of shared marketing, event expenses, and logistical support. Plus, you have others to turn to for help and inspiration when Murphy’s Law rears its ugly head, as it always does.

Build Credibility: When people see two or more authors being promoted for a book signing or reading, online or offline, it increases their attention and builds credibility for all involved. Additionally, this could attract media attention, especially if you’ve reached out to local radio and TV stations ahead of time. This kind of event is great filler for the noon news, for instance.

Create Community: Community is one of the BEST parts of collaborating. You make news, friends, and colleagues. You foster long-term professional relationships that build creative synergy and inspiration.

Next, think about who you might collaborate with.

Generally, it will be other authors. However, you could collaborate with artists or sculptors, as well as other individuals in the arts.

If you’re choosing authors, look on social for authors in your immediate area. I’m not saying Instagram or TikTok, though you might find collaborative opportunities there. I recommend Alignable and Meetup. Those are social platforms that are focused on local and regional connections. Connect with me on Alignable here.

Don’t limit yourself to authors who write only what you write. If you do find several authors who write what you write, and they are open to collaborating, that’s fine. You have a niche.

However, expand your reach by connecting with authors who write different kinds of books from the ones you write. If you write nonfiction, connect with a fiction author and a memoir writer. Each of you will bring something special to the event, and the audience will enjoy the variety of content. You may find your audience likes your other authors’ works, and vice versa; they may like yours.

Find writers’ groups, associations (such as the Nonfiction Authors Association for nonfiction authors), and explore groups on LinkedIn and Facebook that share content about writing and publishing. Dabble Writer has a great blog post about writer’s groups that you might want to visit.

CAVEAT: She mentions NaNoWriMo, which recently folded, but her other suggestions are worth checking out. She also mentions starting your own group. Think about that for a minute.

If you need help crafting a message to connect with others, use ChatGPT with a specific prompt about what you need. This is a good use of AI for writers.

Think people first.

It helps to build relationships first. Write and introduce yourself. Cultivate a genuine connection. Before suggesting the collaboration, find out if the authors you’re talking to have done one before or if they have ever thought of one.

If they have done one, great. That’s your start to see if they want to do one with you.

If they haven’t, ask if they’d be interested in chatting about the possibility.  

Before, during, and after your collaboration, remember to support the other authors’ launches, content, and books. I don’t need to tell you to be authentic, but I will. This is not for AI. It’s for you, in your words, your voice.

You’ll want to consider the ‘what’ of collaboration at the onset.

Once you’ve made the connections and feel good about asking to collaborate, keep these three things in mind.

▶️ Do you have shared goals?

What do you and the others want to achieve: more sales, bigger events, reaching new audiences, growing your email lists, and/or media coverage?

Will you organize book signings, panel discussions, workshops, or launches together?

Consider both in-person and virtual formats to maximize reach. Don’t forget the opportunity to cross-promote in newsletters or on blog posts where each of you writes something for the others in a newsletter or on a blog.

▶️ Who is in charge?

Be clear about who does what.

If you’re the leader, be confident in your ability to manage individuals who miss meetings or fail to fulfill their responsibilities. Consider hiring a VA to handle many of the mundane tasks, such as email outreach, meeting arrangements, and follow-up.

▶️ What needs to be done, and who will do it?

A landing page? Email messaging? Social posts? Video invites? Promotional copywriting? Design? Branding? Strategy for follow-up?

In-person events tend to have more planning than online events. If you are hosting an event at a coffee shop, with the manager’s permission, of course, guests will be free to purchase their own coffee and snacks.

The same at a bookstore. Barnes & Noble has its own café for people to spend money in.

At an independent bookstore, folks might bring their own beverages, and you need not worry about food. You will consult with the bookstore manager about this ahead of time.

However, if you’re making this a big event, if you find four or five authors to join you, and you collectively rent a hotel room, you may want to provide beverages and snacks. You could even ask for a small cover charge, which would be donated to a local charity. I favor animal shelters or rescues, myself.

I did this for Dickless Marketing. I invited some local vendors to set up their wares in a small ballroom at a hotel, and I used that as a lure to draw people to my book signing. I wish I’d been smart enough to collaborate with other authors back then, but it was just me that night.  

The when and where go hand in hand.

Gathering other authors together is a big task, but finding a good time for each of them to participate can be an even greater challenge. Be prepared to plan well ahead. You may want to begin planning while still writing your book!

Often, a book signing at a library or coffee shop will happen on a weekend, when it’s easier for people to attend. If you can do it outdoors, all the better.

Also, wherever you hold an in-person event, be sure to note the location of parking. It’s very frustrating for people to accept an invitation to your event and then not know where to park.

BRING books! Sometimes bookstores will provide them if they have enough notice. But bring books anyway! You’ll want them to be checked out through the bookstore’s system, so they get their share, since they are allowing you to use their store for your event.

I wrote a blog post about how to make friends with bookstores last year. In it, I quoted from an article a bookstore owner wrote in Publisher’s Weekly. Access the blog post at the link in the sentence above.

For an online event featuring the ‘big reveal’ of five new authors’ books, you will work around the audience’s needs in terms of timing. What’s best for them? They may prefer a noontime event to a weekend event.

Arranging the how should be fun and creative!

Make the event fun. Don’t just plan to read from your books. Tell stories. Tell jokes. Have entertainment. Tom and Michele had a wonderful woman who played guitar and sang at their joint book signing for I Am Perfectly Flawsome, along with our client, David Schneer, for his book, BACKBONE: Surviving the Road Less Quantified.

Open with a discussion of the writing process. Let each author share their personal experiences. Maybe have a friend or relative be the MC of the event. For our online Zoom book launches, we have our friend Paul Kirch MC for us. It helps us stay in tune with the audience and not have to worry about timing or chat or other distractions.

At a recent book launch I attended, the organizers had a magician. Online. Via Zoom. It was amazing.

Remember to save time for Q&A. Bring some questions others have asked you and your collaborative authors to get the question-and-answer period started. In case people are hesitant to raise their hands.

Make sure someone, with an iPhone or a camera, is taking video and stills. Each author can have someone do this, so you have a variety of imagery from different angles. After the event, collect testimonials, photos, and comments from attendees. Send what you’ve gathered to each other and to everyone who could be there with a thank you. Send select photos and comments to all the invitees who couldn’t make it, as a ‘we missed you, see what happened.’

Treat a collaboration as a business task with benefits. This is a proven way to both market and promote your own book and to build solid relationships with other authors who share your goals.

Indie-published authors should consider collaboration as a big part of their marketing and promotion efforts. While it’s not the only thing you should be doing to promote and market your book, it’s a winning opportunity to not only increase attention for your book and see more sales, it’s a way to get up front and personal with your audience.

Sharing resources and audiences with other authors, aligning goals, and supporting each other’s work builds meaningful connections that can last a lifetime.

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