Our new author events programme

We have seen significant changes to our team here at October Books over the last six months. Five team members have left for a variety of reasons and we have welcomed three new team members, Alex, Jacqueline and Beccy. We hope to welcome another new team member who will be our book buyer in the coming weeks. In addition, Clare is stepping back from the role as Strategic lead for a few months from the end of March.

All this change has meant we have really had to reassess all the activities and services that we offer. Our events programme is one of the activities under review. Having grown from a few events a year in 2016 the October Books team hosted 19 author talks, over 20 other events including art launches, writers groups, open mic nights, talks and workshops as well as our Members meetings and social events in 2023 alone.

Each events requires significant organisation and promotion to make each one successful. We have estimated that each event costs us around £200 in staff time, room hire costs and other resources. This realisation has led us to rethink our offering whilst still maintaining that all important connection to our local writing talent.

Our plan is that we will offer our community space to authors FOR FREE on a Saturday during shop hours so that they can self organise and host their own event. We ask that the author provides a poster for us and manages Eventbrite or other platform for allowing people to book. We will write a blog and share on our social media and provide the means for customers to purchase books prior to the event and afterwards. We have our first self-hosted talk on Saturday the 27th January, when Denis Wong will be talking about his book, Departure and Return.

We hope you like the new format of local author events and please do let us know if you would like to host your own author event or if you have any feedback on the new programme. Write to Clare or Suzanne at info@octoberbooks.org