How exactly do you incorporate your Faimly Reading Night in with your Book Fair?? We are holding our Annual Family Book Fair Night at the end of October. I had planned on trying to get different people come in and read stories to the kids (who we were going to come in their pj's). I figured if we had different people (fire fighter, police officer, etc...) reading through out the hour and a half time frame the kids and parents could do their shopping and still would be able to hear a good story. Out PTO was going to serve cookies and juice throught out the evening. How do you find out who your local authors are?? Any ideas would be great!!

Sounds like a great event! We are thinking about getting an author to come out and read during our book fair and tieing it into a Family Reading Night. How did you know your author was in the area?

Hi, Deborah Blumenthal was absolutly Fantastic! She did not charge us a dime. We agreed to sell a minimum of 25 of her books, we ended up selling just over 50. I bought them on an online book order web site that had then for almost $5 off the list price. We sold them for what they sell for in the store, so we made $270 profit, on an event that was not suppose to be a fundraiser. I took Deborah out for dinner before hand and got to know her, and to thank her for coming. I asked the teachers to familiarize themselves with her books, some classes drew pictures of her books, that I put on display before hand. All the kids came dressed in their PJ's. After Deborah finished reading her stories, the parents were encouraged to buy the books while the kids were led by the principal in a PJ parade around the gym. Deborah autographed all the books and we went to the cafeteria for juice and cookies afterwards.
I would try and approach any author in your area with this kind of set up, most charge their fee because they expect to do somesort of "seminar" on how to write etc. this was not that kind of event, this was just a Family Story Night!

The author I am looking into for March is about $600+travel. That seems pretty reasonable to me.

summerb when we get authors they tend to range from 1200-1500$ that is with two "performances" so that doesnt seem bad!

Hi, I was just wondering how much did it cost you?
Our PTO is doing the same thing with a local author and she is charging us $800 bucks does that sound rreasonable? Thanks