The writer as performer--is this you?

Last year writer Malcolm Gladwell sold out the 2000 seat Lyceum Theatre in the West End with a ticket price of £20. The Financial Times’ write-up revealed that he used no props, no slides, just a big video screen of him talking. He used the 65 minutes to tell the story of one vignette from the his most recent book, “Outliers.” There was no Q & A afterward.

 As the article points out, it was more like a theatrical one-man show than a typical author’s appearance. It has some distinguished ancestry via the lectures of Charles Dickens and Mark Twain.

 The article’s author, James Harkin, the director of talks at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, sees Gladwell’s show as part of a trend encouraged by the success of TED, the festival of Technology, Entertainment and Design which features 18-minute talks by a variety of innovators. (You can see videos of many of these at www.ted.com and they’re well worth your time.]

 Are such talks going to save authors whose income from their books may be declining? Well, as usual, it’s a big help to be successful already. Gladwell’s best sellers, “The Tipping Point” and “Blink” paved the way for him to become a star of the lecture circuit. It also helps if you are a good performer—there’s no doubt that Gladwell feels confident in front of a crowd.

If you also feel comfortable speaking to groups and have an entertaining message that will appeal to an easily-identifiable target audience, it may be worth exploring whether talks could be a part of your repertoire. You won’t start out by filling the Lyceum, but it could add to your income and increase interest in your books or other writing.

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