Public Speaking

by Maggie Marr

I enjoy public speaking. I have since I was little. As an adult, I satisfied this desire by working first as a guardian-ad-litem in Cook County for abused and neglected children and then as a prosecutor for the City of Denver in Domestic Violence. Every day I'd enter a courtroom and tell a story. Some days I simply told the story to the judge, other day I told the story to a jury, but either way I was weaving the facts of the case into a compelling story, speaking in front of people, and hopefully getting the win.

As an author my public speaking has changed. There are three categories that my public speaking now falls into:
Panel and workshop and author events/signings.

I love a good panel. I met one of my best friends GBC Alumni Melissa Clark on a panel at the Phoenix book festival. On that panel there was no moderator. We started with two debut authors (who'd met just the evening before), an empty tent, and a microphone. We ended with a full tent and a lot of laughs.

I like workshops when they are interactive and inspiring. I've done Hollywood 101 when I was an agent and now as an author/attorney who works with subsidiary rights. I recently did a workshop that focused on The Writer's Team. In the Writer's Team workshop I discussed who an author needs to work with both as a traditionally pubbed author and and Indy author. I've also given workshops on the similarities and differences between women's fiction and romance.

The author event is this weird hybrid that I experienced when I went on tour. My first book tour I didn't know what to expect and my experience ran the gamut. In a couple bookstores I had a table and an audience and I spoke, read from my book, and signed.  Another bookstore put me in the lobby, right beside the front door. It was like I was a greeter/author/bookseller. I was meant to hook those readers right inside the door and convince them to buy my book--I did this for 4 hours.  Now THAT was a harrowing experience.

Maggie Marr is an author, attorney, and producer. She is the author of Hollywood Girls Club, Secrets of The Hollywood Girls Club, Hollywood Hit, Courting Trouble, and Can't Buy Me Love. Hard Glamour the first book in her new Glamour Series is out now and Broken Glamour will be available this spring. You can follow Maggie on Facebook and Twitter. She lives and works in Los Angeles. Please sign up for her newsletter here because she likes to give away books and chocolate.