YA authors Renée Watson, Angie Thomas, and Ibi Zoboi at the North Texas Teen Book Festival.
Photos by Joon Koo at SJKoo Photography & Christy Archibald at Christy Archibald Photography.
Questions to ask yourself as you begin to plan:
Mission:Step 1: Draft a Plan
Though it may seem obvious, organizing and executing a book festival takes a tremendous amount of preparation. In our case, planning began almost two years before the actual first festival was executed. The NTTBF steering committee used that time to determine the mission and scope we wanted for our festival. See the above sidebar for guidance on crafting a mission and scope for your event. After establishing a plan, next is figuring out how to pay for it. In the case of NTTBF, IPL was awarded a $48,000 grant from the Texas State Library and Archives Commission and the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Also, NTTBF raised $10,000 through a one-time Kickstarter campaign for expenses not covered by our grant. Assuming you don’t already have a grant secured, consider applying for them through local, state, and national literacy agencies, as well as looking at other funding sources such as your library system or school district administrators—make a case for why your event matters. Schools across North Texas have garnered support from their administrators for taking students to NTTBF as a literary field trip, and schools recruited teachers and coaches to drive busloads of their students to our festival. Whether you have strong funding or are in need of sponsors, getting your community invested in your festival is essential. For NTTBF, DFW’s Forever YA book club jumped in to be supportive in a variety of ways. Look for like-minded individuals and reach out to folks who are invested in service. While what local businesses can offer varies greatly, often donating resources to a kid-centered event is one that they can get behind. NTTBF partnered with DART (Dallas Area Rapid Transit) for transportation services and promotion, as well a number of small, local businesses to pay for author meals and host other festival-related events.Attendees listen to a book pitch from a librarian during a session of "Speed Date with a Book."
Step 3: Focus the Festival
If possible, attend other festivals and take notes about what you found successful. For NTTBF, after drafting our plan and determining the budget, securing our venue was next up. Our grant allowed us to utilize the Irving Convention Center. Remember to be realistic about costs and the potential size of your audience, and select your venue accordingly. The next task is securing the talent and books for the event. For festival startups with limited funding, look locally. While securing well-known authors is always a goal of literary events, today’s new author might be a superstar in years to come. Authors often have information about who to contact for events on their website—use that to inquire about their availability and related costs. Next, arranging book sales is essential. Be sure to select a bookseller that understands the vision for your event. Authors at the 2017 NTTBF included Jason Reynolds,
Veronica Roth, Nicola Yoon, and more.
Step 4: Market the Festival
Besides marketing a well-planned program of author events for your actual festival day through ads and features in the local news media outlets, finding ways to get an audience to your event is critical. NTTBF hosted educator mixers for librarians and teachers where a short presentation about the festival was shared, followed by a question and answer session and a group sharing time between school districts. Attendees signed up as festival volunteers and were provided marketing materials, such as posters, bookmarks, T-shirts, and banners to advertise our event in their community. Our festival website hosted reproducible materials, such as author lists by interest level and logos and other media files for printing and distribution. NTTBF countdown videos made by local schools and city employees, such as local police and firefighters, were shared via YouTube and pushed out on social media platforms. This video was made by the city of Irving to help bring awareness and recruit volunteers; it ran regularly on the city TV channel. After each festival, an overview video capturing the day was widely distributed. A snapshot [PDF] of each year's results is also provided to sponsors, publishers, grantees, and others. In addition to creating promo materials, developing an online and social media presence for your festival is essential. NTTBF employs Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, and Facebook as pathways to the teens and tweens we want to see on festival day—use them to find your audience and build enthusiasm for your event.Step 5: Execute the Festival
Festival cofounder and article
author Rose Brock (left) with children's horror master R.L. Stine (center), and Karin Perry, library science professor at Sam Houston State University.
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