The lesson of this story is be careful what you agree to. Without naming names, I agreed to have two authors visit my school and talk to the children. What they really wanted was to promote their books. 2 months before that I have the book fair on from Scholastic. The former is okay because it happens every year and it can be seen as a win win. However, it is still making my head spin, organising it.
I am having to promote the books the book fair is selling and now I am being asked to promote the visiting authors books too. Obviously I will have to do the latter after the fair is over. Yes it is all a question of time management- not one of my strong points.
Just to make my life a little more complex, I have also been negotiating with a speakers agency, the principal and the teachers to align an author visit for Book Week. I sent off the deposit on Thursday but it took a lot of foot work to get to that point. Still, it will be great to have Andrew Daddo come and speak to our children. It should be especially engaging for the older boys who are not reading as much as the voracious readers in the rest of the school.
It all sounds very simple when I write it down but it has been a sharp learning curve managing the book fair and negotiating with the pushy authors.
Further to the above post- I went to the network meeting and put the problem to my more experienced colleagues.They had two different viewpoints. One said - no author visits they just want to make money -tell the to go away. The other said - let them come but tell them you wont handle any money or push the book. Send a note out about the visit but don't disrupt the school in any way to accommodate them. I went with the second approach and it seems to be working for me.
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