The Meaningful Online Event: Current Thinking

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Regardless of how the pandemic unfolds, online events will continue, with a focus on meaningful, quality experiences; accessibility; and a sense of community

For 18 months now, we’ve been reporting on the many ways authors, publishers, and booksellers have pivoted to online methods of marketing books. The online literary event remains one of the most discussed and even disagreed-upon areas, with dramatically different strategies and results. Some events are free, some are paid; some have high production value, some don’t; some focus on sales, some focus on turnout. And that’s before you get into considerations of technology and choice of platform.

At The Bookseller’s Marketing + Publicity Conference in June, two sessions focused on current thinking around online events. The strength of one discussion in particular was its 360-degree view, with a panel that included a bookseller, an author, a Big Five publicist, a literary festival organizer, and a professional event producer.

The overriding theme of the discussion: what will be meaningful for the audience? Yes, everyone wants to sell books, but the first step is thinking about how and why the event will represent a special experience for the person attending. Just because events have moved online doesn’t mean there is any less requirement to make the audience care about what’s happening. (More on how this plays out in a bit.)

While there has been a dropoff in online event attendance over the summer, especially as restrictions ease, everyone expects online audiences to return in the fall. Serena Brett, a producer at Fane Productions (an event production company) said they did a survey in March that found more than 80 percent of people plan to continue watching online events even when in-person events return. Fane plans to have a livestream element for all in-person events in the fall. All panelists agreed that online literary events are here to stay and are important for accessibility reasons, if nothing else. That said, everyone who’s ever been involved in a virtual event knows they are not easier to do—they can generate even more emails and stress than in-person events and take up more time.

Moreover, publishers have to devote more time to planning author events because there are more models than before. Jess Duffy, a publicist at Pan Macmillan UK, said that prior to the pandemic, there were two or three models of what an author tour might look like. Now there are 10. And it’s the publicist who plays a big role in determining how it will go. Fortunately, for books with smaller budgets, online events have opened up a lot of opportunity, she said. You can put together a “purposeful and productive” digital events program that doesn’t require travel around the country.

Duffy looks at how much of the tour will be accessible to the largest audience and then at the quality of the event. There’s something to be said for those highly produced events, but she’s also looking to include smaller, potentially more interactive and intimate events. Another factor is distributing sales opportunities fairly. “Having the opportunity to do a big in-person event that’s also going to have an online streaming presence is amazing,” she said. “It means that [event is] going to work really, really hard for us.” However, if the publisher does a big tentpole event for an author who is also doing a range of independent bookshop events, the publisher will try not to stream that big event, which could undercut the rest of the tour. Or maybe that big event is held after the smaller events. “We are trying our hardest to make these event schedules work for everyone,” she said.

For a purely digital tour, publicists consider how each event can uniquely shine. Duffy said it helps to have a standout host who will bring their own audience to an event and make it lively—someone the author has an existing relationship with, ideally. Brett said, “What we have found works best online is getting the authors and interviewers in the same room together as much as possible. It just leads to a much more relaxed conversation, and you can really see it in the rapport.”

Superfans of an author might go to every single online event—or there ought to be potential for that. Consider how a tour can be planned in such a way so that there’s a different host, a different angle, or a different topic under consideration each time. Some events might be more book-club oriented; others can be held as live workshops; there could be a live podcast recording, and so on. “There’s a way to make sure everyone is getting a really quality event and package,” Duffy said.

Having a live component for an online event, rather than just pre-recording it, dramatically helps with marketing. Diccon Towns, technical director for Zarucchi (a platform for online events), said this also offers needed structure for event marketing and promotion. “You can focus your marketing campaign on one point, rather than have a long-term marketing campaign to promote your content,” he said. “The other thing is it gives a sense of immediacy for the audience. They’re waiting for the thing to start.” And after that, the key bit is interactivity—between the audience and author but also crucially between audience members, which is a special quality that in-person events can’t offer. “It fosters that sense of community,” he said.

There is some increased pressure to have higher quality production for online events—but it’s not a must. There’s more pressure, in fact, to ensure an online event feels meaningful or special, as Duffy indicated above. Bookseller Mairi Oliver said that her bookshop doesn’t have the budget for professional filming or even getting the author in the room a lot of the time. So they’ve put their time, money, and energy into finding event chairs who can tease out aspects of the book that speak to the bookstore’s audience, to ensure a unique experience that’s not reliant on high production values. She also pointed out her store has book clubs that are terrific at selling books, and the author only has to show up for 15 minutes at the end of a session. Or the store might do a written author Q&A ahead of time and put that into the store newsletter, with a one-minute video of the author reading. “That sells books,” Oliver said.

“You really do need to love your tech person,” said festival organizer Helen Bagnall in a separate discussion. “The success of your [online] show will sink or swim depending on how involved you are with your tech people. The earlier you involve them in terms of what you want to do, the better,” she advised. However, she also admitted that it doesn’t matter how much you plan, or “how good you are,” some people are going to have trouble accessing the event. “Some people won’t be able to get on, they won’t read the instructions, they’ll arrive 10 minutes late, they will be a little bit upset, they may be trying to get on via Nokia 3750, or they may live in a 12th-century tower with no WiFi. You kind of have to channel your inner help desk or partner with someone who really knows how to do it in the middle of the show,” she said.

Oliver confirmed that reality and said “digital poverty” continues to be an issue for her customers. Older audiences aren’t as comfortable with technology, and so to reduce barriers to access, her store, The Lighthouse, is planning to live stream directly on the page that advertises their events. She emphasized that for a lot of people, digital isn’t necessarily more accessible.

Nonetheless, prior to the pandemic, Duffy said of online events, “We [publishers] were really behind, and I really hope that going forward we just see this as a huge opportunity and don’t fall back into those safe patterns from before.”

Bottom line: Author Ellen Wiles, who has formally researched and written about the value of literary events, said, “One thing that my research revealed was that people really care about this idea of authenticity and a sense of care being given to [a] particular event. … If you can tell a story with your event, whether it is digital or in person, about why you’re doing an event or why what you’re doing is unique, why it matters,” that is the key to success, she said. “Audiences will connect with that even if it’s not slick.”

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