Another upside, for the council, was that the event didn’t require getting on a plane to participate.
“This makes it more available to communities and others who may not have been able to go to New York in May, they couldn’t devote time, money, and other resources,” Firestone-Teeter said. “So, in a way, I think that when we move to the virtual arena, the program is a more available program for more people.”
The big question is what happens next. The e-book council usually helps organize about 1,300 occasions each year after the conference. Synagogues and other local organizations pay travel prices and welcome writers in their communities for interviews. And even if the authors paid, they have the opportunity to sell e-books on the user to an audience that has spent time with them, and would possibly feel pressured to show their appreciation by purchasing a copy.
From now on, those conversations will be scheduled virtually and it remains to be noticed how many will take place.
The e-book board strives to locate artistic tactics to organize virtual events, adding requests to authors to point labels that can be placed on internal e-book covers and allowing participants to have short, non-public conversations with authors in subcommittee rooms. This can also provide joint occasions for several popular author establishments.
“The virtual occasion area allows our communities to take risks,” Firestone-Teeter said. “It allows them to create many more programs, perhaps in a physical area. Obviously, the prices are different.”
This will be held at the Grand Albuquerque JCC, which regularly invites between six and eight writers to speak at their annual e-book festival in the fall and one or two more during the year. This year, since it doesn’t have to cover travel costs, the JCC plans to invite the same number of writers to the e-book festival, which it does virtually, as well as a writer consistent with the following month.
The JCC is also interested in partnering with other Jewish organizations to organize joint events, this will not update organizational events just for the local community. Exclusive community occasions “strengthen the community” and are “more intimate” even when virtual, said Phyllis Wolf, director of arts and education at the JCC in Albuquerque.
The convention also organized a panel on how to plan literary occasions in the coronavirus era, which included an organization on how to plan socially remote occasions.
Iris Krasnow is afraid to sell books. Before the Book Council conference, he spoke on a virtual occasion with 1,100 attendees and monitored the sale of 400 copies of his new memoir, “Camp Girls: Fireside Lessons on Friendship, Courage, and Leyalty.”
“I’m sure of that,” he said of the possibility of virtual occasions arising from this year’s conference.
Mary Morris, who spoke about her “All the Way to the Tiger” memoir, said she was not afraid to waste reservations personally, as she had established many relationships in her three previous Jewish Book Council events. But she thinks that not being able to attach after two-minute presentations can harm less established authors who have not developed relationships with the sites.
“It’s a very exciting occasion when it’s in use,” Morris said. “And one of the things I discovered about the user component is that I’ll be approached by a site and asked questions and then I can say they’re interested in bringing me. And sometimes, I felt that subsequent conversations had really led me to post messages.
Organizing virtual events is the long-term purpose of the eBook dashboard.
“For authors, not necessarily being able to scale some of those user communities is disappointing and we expect them to revisit them in the long run,” Firestone-Teeter said. “And I think for them, bringing their readers together in user, physically signing their e-books, seeing an e-book sale, and seeing their e-book in the world, is something very special.”