How to Set Up Unforgettable School Visits

Children’s book marketing consultant and Imagination Soup founder Melissa Taylor recently visited our How to Launch Your Graphic Novel course and gave a fabulous workshop on how to run effective school visits. 

She gave such excellent advice that I decided to write up her playbook and share it with you. (And guess what – if you need customized help with your children’s book marketing plan, that’s exactly what Melissa does.)

Why Author Visits Matter

The first thing Melissa explained is that author visits aren’t just “nice to have.” They can play an extremely important role in your creative career on three fronts at once:

• income
• sales momentum
• human impact

As Melissa put it, “school visits can help you make money as a creator because… well, let’s face it, it’s hard to make money as a creator.”

School visits can be a reliable complement to advances and royalties.

Doing school visits open direct pipelines for book orders and pre-orders. If you hit it out of the park with one appearance, that often seeds several more (because teachers and librarians talk to each other, and definitely spread the word if they experience an outstanding author visit).

And finally, one of the most important reasons to do them: the human reason. You meet your readers!! 

Melissa was emphatic about the joy of connecting with your actual target audience, and the realization that you can change kids’ lives. 

How to Get Author Visits (Outreach that Works)

Your publisher might help you get author visits that are centered around your book launch, but these are often more for promotional purposes and unpaid. Other than that, you’ll likely book visits yourself. 

Here are the avenues Melissa recommends:

1. Start with your indie bookstore. Bookstores can often place you with at least one school, and sometimes many. It may be unpaid, but it jump-starts relationships and can tie directly to pre-orders. 
2. Research local schools. It’s tedious—and in some regions like Arizona there aren’t even school librarians to connect with—so team up with your creator friends and trade leads. When you land an opportunity, be explicit about value and expectations.
3. Make your website work for you. Have a clean “Author Visits” page with offerings by grade band and timing, as well as information about tech needs, pricing or “contact for rates,” pre-order instructions, and a couple of standout testimonials.

Most crucially, after each visit, ask for testimonials and referrals. 

“My client Saki Tanaka got six more extra school visits based on one visit the bookstore got for her,” Melissa told us, “because once a librarian likes you and knows you do a good job, they’ll tell their friends.”

The Secret Superpower: Pair Author Visits with Pre-Orders 

Tying visits to pre-orders is one of the most leveraged strategies Melissa shared. It concentrates sales, shows momentum to your publisher, and can even influence bestseller lists.

Here’s how to do it. During your book launch window (the month or two immediately following your pub date), offer to “donate” your author visit to schools and libraries in exchange for a minimum order. Mention your normal rate so the school recognizes that you are providing something of concrete value.

You might require the school to order 25, 50, or even more copies as the prerequisite for the author visit.

Melissa told us that Kate Messner required schools to order 60 books during the launch window for one of her recent books, and scheduled three visits a day for 10 days. So she sold 1,800 books within that 2-week period.

She also told us about author Scott Reintgen’s astounding school visit marathon for his middle grade fantasy novel The Last Dragon on Mars – “three visits a day for three months!” – which he tied to pre-orders before launch. Combined with a strong book, that helped him hit the New York Times bestseller list.

When it comes to the logistics of fulfilling pre-orders, Melissa strongly recommends partnering with a savvy indie bookstore. Many indies can handle all the forms, payments, and drop-shipping for the school; if yours can’t, do some research to find stores that specialize in school orders.

How to Price Author Visits

Melissa explains that pricing is a spectrum. Debut authors often start with very modest rates, and raise their rates as demand and testimonials grow.

“A lot of people starting out,” Melissa says, “will charge $300 or maybe up to $500.”

If you want to grow a strong revenue stream from author visits, one effective strategy is to start with a low rate in order to get through the door, do a standout job, collect testimonials and referrals, and raise your rates as word starts to spread about how good your presentations are.

As you build experience, you can step up to half-days or full-days at higher rates. Melissa mentioned creators at the four-figure level per day (for example, one well-known author who was around “$1,800 a day”). 

The bottom line is that your rates will depend on experience, format (virtual vs. in-person), and scope (assemblies, classroom workshops, teacher professional development, etc.).

How to Run Author Visits – Melissa’s Core Tips!

Melissa spent years as a classroom teacher before becoming a full-time blogger and children’s book marketing consultant. So this is where she really sparkles, with practical, classroom-tested tips on how to turn “a talk” into an energizing, interactive learning experience.

Below is her step-by-step advice.

1. Begin with the outcome (not your origin story!)

Treat the visit like a lesson plan. Decide what you want students to do or learn by the end? 

Maybe you want them to learn how to invent a character, write a short comic, understand some basic principles of comics storytelling, explore a STEM idea… whatever makes sense based on your book and what you love talking about.

Then structure your talk to make that outcome inevitable.

Here’s a sample 45-minute author talk structure for 3rd-5th graders that Melissa shared:

• 5 minutes: Hooky “intro” 
• 10 minutes: Game that introduces kids to the key idea/learning you want to share with them
• 10 minutes: Interactive drawing
• 2 minutes: Movement activity so they get a “brain break”
• 10 minutes: Interactive reading/storytelling
• 8 minutes: Q&A

2. Make management easy on yourself

One thing that can quickly turn an author visit into a disaster is an unruly, unfocused audience.

In order to prevent problems like this in advance, Melissa recommends that you borrow strategies that teachers already use.

The first thing you should do, before your author visit begins, is ask the teacher, principal, or librarian, what the school’s “quiet signal” is. It might be raising your hand and putting your other finger over your lips; it might be clapping three times; or it might be something else. 

Practice it in advance so you remember it, and use it anytime you need the room.

Another thing Melissa recommends is the power of pause. “Don’t talk if kids are talking!” she warns. If some kids are not paying attention, she says, one of the worst things you can do is talk over them. Instead, you should stop, look at them respectfully, wait until they’ve realized they need to refocus, and then continue.

It’s also essential to build “brain breaks” into your presentation. These are short periods when you ask the kids to stand up, stretch, or do a quick movement activity of some sort. Simon Says is a fun and easy game that works wonders. Then you can re-cue the quiet signal.

And finally, one of Melissa’s most powerful tips is to “be explicit about the positive behavior you hope to see.” For example, she said, you can tell them at the beginning, “I will call on students who are sitting quietly and raising their hands.” 

She mentioned that you might need to use this strategy with teachers as well – she’s sometimes seen author visits where the teachers used the event as an excuse to chat amongst themselves in the back, not realizing that their behavior is just as distracting as the kids could be.

So she suggests, before the event starts, saying something to the teachers along the lines of, “I’m really looking forward to inspiring the kids, but I know they have a lot of energy and can get carried away sometimes. Since you know your students better than I do, what do you recommend I do to make sure everyone in the room stays focused?”

In other words: say what you want to see.

3. Make it interactive (this is the fun part!)

Melissa offered us a range of interactive presentation ideas that could plug into almost any book or age band:

• Think–Pair–Share. Pose a question, give silent “think time,” have kids share with their neighbor, then regroup. It raises participation from a handful of hands to the whole room.

• True/False & quick quizzes. This can be especially fun for the section about your personal bio. Make the kids guess some true/false statements about you or your book! (I admit I also loved the True/False example Melissa gave in her presentation: “True or false? Authors earn a lot of money.”) A “quick quiz” example would be a multiple-choice “sorting” quiz where kids tally A/B/C/D and you reveal their “type.”

• Image prompts → many stories. Show 2–3 random photos or pictures, and ask the kids to come up with their own story ideas using those prompts. Ask them to share, and celebrate the divergent thinking and variety of ideas that result. Then tell them to finish writing the stories later!

• “Would you rather…” game. This is a very popular game with elementary and middle school students. Tie it to your book’s world. For example, in a book about libraries, you could ask “would you rather read in a chair or on the floor?” In a book about sea creatures, you could ask, “would you rather be a shark or a sea horse?”  You could extend it into mini drawings.

• Fill-in-the-blank group story. Use a frame—she referenced the Pixar-style “Story Spine.” At each blank, constrain the category (ie, “Think of an animal,” “a smell,” “a sound”). Have a helper hold up the chosen word and re-read from the top each time. You’ll probably get lots of shared laughter that bonds the room.

• Character creation / live drawing. Mash up student suggestions or do a step-by-step drawing of one of your characters, having the students follow along. Don’t be afraid to be “worse” than the kids; they love out-drawing a pro.

• Sensory-signal read-along. This activity might usually be better for prose than graphic novels, but Melissa wanted author-illustrators to know about it. As you read an excerpt from your book, ask the kids to point to their eyes for any sensory information related to sight, their nose for smell, their ears for sound, etc.—a simple way to keep their attention tuned to craft.

4. Other key tips!

Often times, one of the most awkward periods of a presentation is the file-in period as students arrive and get settled. But Melissa said you can use this period as a secret weapon to get them on your side!

When kids are filing in, don’t stand awkwardly onstage—chat with them. You can ask what book they’re reading right now, who their favorite characters are, if they have pets, or whatever you would find interesting. A couple of minutes of human connection greases the wheels for the entire session.

When you call on students, avoid gendering them. Use words like “friend,” “artist,” “learner,” or “student.” You can reference clothes they’re wearing, like “I see my friend with glasses and a red hoodie is raising their hand – what did you want to say?”

As mentioned above, pace your presentation in short blocks. Kids’ attention is shorter than ever. Alternate “listening” and “doing” in 5–10 minute chunks – by all means, no 30–40 minute monologues!!!!

Also, remember to calibrate for age bands. Younger students have a shorter attention span than older ones, so presentations for kindergarten or early elementary aged students can be short. Keep it to about 20 minutes, highly visual and interactive. 

A corollary to this is, don’t let organizers push K–6 into one long assembly! Young kids and older kids have very different needs, and it’s much better if you address them separately.

If you’re reading from your book or showing pictures, everyone must be able to see. It’s almost always better if you show spreads from your book on slides, so the pictures are as big as possible and the back row isn’t squinting.

During any question and answer period, make sure to be intentional as you call on students. Call on a range of grades (younger kids often sit up front, older in back). Call on people on the right and on the left. Call on different genders. You get the picture.

And finally, treat yourself like a professional speaker (which you are). Here are the key elements of impactful public speaking:

• Use open body language. Don’t fold your arms around the mic/clicker.
• Block the room. Move to the left, the center, the right. Visit each zone so no one feels ignored.
• Make eye contact.
• Use vocal variety. Vary the tone and strength of your voice, vary the pacing, and include pauses. Silence is punctuation.

How to Follow Up After Author Visits

Your first author visit isn’t a single event; it’s the launchpad for a specific channel of your creative career.

Say thank you on the spot, as soon as the presentation has concluded. Then email a thank you to all the teachers and organizers as soon as possible. 

Melissa stressed gratitude in general—she even noted how much it matters to her when people thank her for reviews. A warm, specific thank-you keeps the door open.

A “thank you” email is also it’s the perfect way to ask for a testimonial and request referrals. “I’d love to hear what you and your students thought about my presentation – I truly appreciate your feedback. And if you found it valuable, I’d love to know if you have any colleagues at other schools who might be interested in hosting me.” 

Following up quickly makes it easier (and more likely) for your hosts to send you a testimonial. It’s important to do it while their memory of the experience is fresh.

If you tied the visit to pre-orders, send the school a short wrap-up note with the total books ordered (if you have it), a link to classroom activities/downloads, and an invitation to have students send you one drawing or one question. Low-friction, high-delight follow-ups extend the relationship.

Conclusion

Melissa’s north star is simple: treat your visit like teaching, not like a reading. Define a concrete outcome, keep time in lively short blocks, and use classroom-tested management so kids feel safe and engaged. 

Then wrap that craft in a smart business approach—outreach and logistics through partnerships with indie bookstores, pre-order minimums during your book’s launch window, a clear pricing strategy, and gracious follow-ups.

Use this as a blueprint, then put your own creative spin on it. By doing this, school visits can become a key pillar in your career as an author.

---

Melissa Taylor is the founder of Imagination Soup, one of the largest consumer-oriented children’s book review sites in the U.S. It’s a place where parents, grandparents, librarians, and teachers can find great children’s books as well as educational learning ideas, resources, and community.

Besides being an education and children’s book blogger & writer, Melissa is a former award-winning bilingual teacher and literacy trainer, and a passionate advocate for literacy, representation in children’s literature, and high-quality education. In addition to running Imagination Soup, she writes for clients such as Random House, Adobe Education, eBay, ALEX Toys, Imagine Toys, Scholastic Parent and Child, Babble, Sylvan Learning, Parenting Magazine, and others.

She is also a consultant with children’s authors and illustrators. In that capacity, she supports authors with publicity, marketing, and author branding, and helps authors improve their school visits with presentation tips and personalized educational activities customized to their books. 

Find out more about Melissa’s consulting services here.

Over to You!

What’s one idea from Melissa’s advice that you’re excited to try for your next author visit?