Notes On Speaking

I’ve been speaking professionally (in the sense of standing up in front of groups of people and talking for a while, for money) since 2009 (though it didn’t become a real-deal part of my career until a few years after that), and I’d like to share some things I’ve learned in that time, having since given hundreds of talks to groups of five and crowds of 5,000, at schools, conferences, libraries, and everything in between.

First, a lot of people are curious about how the speaking world works, i...