An Unusual Publisher Event for Authors

Last weekend, I was in Nashville for an unusual
author event. Over the last four and half years, I’ve acquired books for Morgan James
Publishing. It’s the nature of book publishing to introduce a steady stream
of new books into the market. Often this event is called an author launch where
they launch their book into the marketplace.



As a publisher, we set the date of this launch
months ahead and encourage the authors to work to build buzz and momentum for
that date. We encourage their activity but typical for publishers, the author
will handle the actual work such as getting people to review the book on
Amazon.







Several weeks ago, Morgan James invited authors
whose books released from December 2016 through March 2017 to come to a red
carpet event. The authors dressed up, held their books and were interviewed on
the red carpet. The interviews were live streamed on Facebook Live. After the
interviews, Morgan James had special dinner to honor our authors at the famous
Wild Horse Saloon in
downtown Nashville.







From my many years in publishing, I’ve never seen a
publisher put on this type of separate and special event to honor their authors.
As a part of the event, David Hancock, the founder of Morgan James, gave each
author a special “challenge coin” in a presentation box. “Challenge
Coins” started during World War I where a unit carried a coin and were
challenged to present the coin to prove their affiliation. These coins are
popular with the Army Special Forces. David created these coins which on one
side have a book and include the words “Educate, Encourage, Inform, Inspire.”
The reverse includes the Morgan James book logo and “the entrepreneurial
publisher” and the Morgan James website address. The coin is a remarkable
reminder to every author of the partnership with their publisher.



The next day, some of the authors stayed for a day
of marketing training. Not every author could stay both days but a number
of them stayed and invested in themselves. The
training day was excellent and included a representative from Ingram Publishing
Services (the distributor for Morgan James books), specific marketing training,
media training and much more. Bret Ridgway, co-author of the book, Mistakes Authors Make ,
spoke about  some of the mistakes authors make and his services at Speaker Fulfillment
Services. One of the key mistakes that authors make is writing a book
without understanding the endgame with their book. What do they want the reader
to do after reading the book? Hire them for coaching or get some of their
services or sign up for the author's email list? These elements have to be
written into the foundation of your book from the beginning. The training session was excellent and I learned a great deal from
this valuable education.



Morgan James Publishing planning two more of these
events in Nashville and will follow the seasons of releases for these books. I
was honored to be included and look forward to going to the events later this
year.  



Tweetable:



What is a red carpet event for authors? Learn about this unusual publisher event. (ClickToTweet)