The Ups & Downs Of Book Talks....

 
Hi all,

Sorry for keeping quiet for the past few weeks as I have been busy shuffling between towns to do book talks to promote my book. It has been pretty tiring, I tell you! All those travelling around and not exactly having an excited crowd who came specially to listen to me speak ....now I know how it feels for a budding singer / actor / dancer trying to have his/her BIG break! I feel you, my brother and my sister!!

Boy, if you were there for my first few attempts to do book talks, you would either have laughed your head off or fallen asleep!! Yes, I admit, I was pretty bad!

At one time, during one of my more important book talks at a popular venue down in KL, it took me a few weeks to prep for this important book talk but when the time came for me to take to the stage, I had stage fright and promptly forgot to say what I wanted to say!!

Luckily for me, there weren't many people sitting on the chairs provided BUT the most embarrassing thing was my editor and some staff from my publisher were there to listen to my talk. Yikes! I had the jitters! What was supposed to be an hour session turned out to be a brief 15 minute talk....how embarrassing and I could feel my face going red!!

Ok, ok....it wasn't all that bad because I eventually managed to muster all my courage to start speaking coherently and tried my best to tell my story as best I could through my slide show presentation...but still,  it could have been much better! Oh well, I learn :)

In all fairness, I was ready with my paper in hand to share my stories plus my slide show presentation but when I saw the author presenting before me, he seemed so relaxed and comfortable up on stage and he didn't even have a piece of paper in front of him....so I thought to myself "Hmm, if he can do that, so can I!!"

Big mistake....what a valuable lesson I learnt that day!

Well, I must admit I have been getting better and better at my book talks and even managed to last them as long as 45 minutes AND without reading from a piece of paper! Woohoo!!

To be honest, I seem to have mixed feelings about doing book talks....sometimes, I get very excited doing them, other times, not so but one thing I have learnt, that is....to be confident enough to speak in public and carry on talking even though I might only have one or two listeners in front of me. Sometimes, it can be quite discouraging but still, I have to persevere and carry on.

I tell myself that this is all temporary and it is a learning curve for me and that one day, all this hard work, having to deal with crappy microphones at times and all the travelling done at my own expenses will pay off! I know that one day, there will be people who will come to hear me speak!! 

The best rewards I get for now is when I do get some people coming up to me and telling me how much they have enjoyed my little book talk and that they will do their own exploration as well, be it on a bicycle or by car with their family. The additional plus points are when they asked me to autograph their copy :) Times like these is what keeps me going!

So for now, I guess I will continue to do book talks but only to a chosen few. For my next book talk,  it will be at Kinokuniya KLCC, one of the biggest bookstores here in Malaysia! Keeping my fingers and toes crossed that I will have an enthusiastic audience who will be interested to listen and who are not afraid to ask me questions  about my journey to make it more interesting and interactive!

Do drop by if you happen to be in KL on the 8th Dec, 2012 from 3pm - 4pm (as stated on the above poster, compliments from my publisher)  Now that I have seen what my publisher can do, I will insist on having more promotional posters like this for my future book talks to inform the public, at least one week beforehand.

Hopefully then, I will see a much better crowd for my future book talks.....

So, until my next update,  happy travels!