COSTS ASSOCIATED WITH AN AUTHOR APPEARANCE

General honorariums are listed for each author (see each author's 'Presentations" page).  Some of these honorariums are negotiable, depending on your specific needs, whether the author has family or research to do in your area, and a variety of other reasons.  So for more specific information, please contact Catherine Balkin at telephone 718-857-7605 or email her at BalkinBuddies@aol.com.

In addition to the honorarium you will want to factor in these costs:

Travel: Air/car
Travel expenses (air fare quotes can be found using www.travelocity.com -- but obviously is dependant on location of author, your own location, and the actual dates that the author will be flying). Mapquest can provide an accurate mileage estimate -- don't forget round trip.

Travel: hotel
Usually for any author except a local one (within a 50 mile radius) you will be paying a 37.5 cent mileage fee AND a hotel bill for the night before and sometimes the actual night of the visit if the author can not get appropriate connections home the night of the visit. We suggest calling reasonable hotels in your area to get an idea of what the charges will be.

Books:
Plan to buy some multiple copies of the author's books so that one copy can always be in the LMC for student reading in the library and others can be checked out by staff and students for sharing in the classroom.  Publishers will sometimes provide a free review copy or a discounted copy of one or two of the author's books if you call and request them.  Be sure to mention to the publisher that the author is coming to your school.

Publishers will also often sell the books directly to the school at a discount for autographing purposes at author visits (about 25% to 40% off, sometimes at fully returnable terms), so if you're buying books for autographing purposes, you may want to sell the books at the full price to have a bit extra for shipping back returns. Or you can reduce returns by sending the students home with a flyer of the prices of the authors' books and get preorders so you'll know exactly how many to order. It's wise, however, to order a few extra, even if you do preorders, for those spur-of-the-moment purchases. Or at least have book plates or labels available for the author to sign, and then order the additional books you need after the author visit and put the labels in them for the students who didn't preorder all the titles they wanted.

You may also want to find out if your local bookstore, distributor, or online resources offer a discount and compare them to the publishers' discounts.  Be sure to take the returns policy into consideration.

Misc.:

There are several other incidentals necessary for a successful author visit:  printing costs, film for pictures etc. -- more information about this can be found in ABCs of an Author/Illustrator Visit (Linworth).

Bottom Line:

Most schools should figure a total cost of an author visit at $2,000-$2,500 depending on the actual honorarium that will be requested.  Travel costs can be minimized by helping to arrange visits in several schools in your area or partnering with a public library or civic organization.