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Debra Frasier, Author Visits
Common Questions & Answers:
Cost per day or week?
When requiring an overnight stay my honorarium is $1250.00 per day. Airfare, car, and accommodations, (with a food budget) is also covered by the schools. This honorarium includes the pre-planning before the residency, the travel days necessary, as well as the days of work within a school. If more than one day is required in a single school, the second day is $1100, only.
This daily rate includes three hardcover books ($16.00 each) and one Host a Vocabulary Parade Curriculum Kit, ($20.00 each) (for a total $68.00 value), all sent ahead, before the residency begins. (One set per school.)
Number of sessions you will do per day?
I will offer three large group sessions per day, (ONLY THREE), a Lunch-With-the-Author session if a school would like (or with faculty, if preferred, this is optional with each school), autographing session by day’s end, a 20 to 40 minute faculty session before or after the school visit, and an optional Parent’s Reception before, after, or during school. Sometimes communities hosting several school visits prefer to schedule an Author Dinner with a longer program, for interested faculty in all of the schools. (Sometimes the local Reading Council sponsors this, too, outside of the school contract.)
Length of each session? (primary and intermediate groups)
Session length depends upon the school’s needs. I like to have one hour with each group, 45 minutes with K-1 grades, though I have had very good results with the youngest students, even when included within the longer primary session. The autographing session depends on the amount of books needing attention. The optional Faculty session focuses on how to use my books in the classroom, and the length is determined by each school. Ideas for how to structure an Eat-With-the-Author Lunch can be discussed. (Some schools hold an essay contest, some use it as awards for past efforts, etc. Most order pizza and salads, hold it in the library.)
How many students can you speak with at a time?
I can speak to a great many students, as many as 400, if an auditorium is available. (The larger the audience the more important it is to have a darkened room for the slide presentation and a large screen, even a white wall, if well viewed.) For very large audiences, gyms can be used, as well as high school auditoriums. Whenever possible it is best to keep the group to between one and two hundred at a time. Smaller groups are always best, but often school numbers do not permit such a structure.
What equipment do you need?
I travel with my own projector, computer, and slide advancer. I need a media cart, three plugs (usually requires an outlet strip or extension cord, unless the cart is multi-plugged), and a large screen. A microphone is very important. Often, controlling the lights in large spaces (gyms, auditoriums, etc) requires a short lesson from a staff person, and someone to manage turning them on and off during the presentations.
Other information?
Because I both write AND illustrate, (so must show images), my sessions require a room that can be darkened so I can show slides. I bring my own LCD projector, so some light can be tolerated, but the darker the room the better focused the students. I am quite passionate about the creative process and focus my talks on how we collect ideas, how we edit those ideas, and how a finished work is a long journey, like following a mystery, to get to a book.
Can you list your books in print (please differentiate between paperback and hardcover). Any new books coming out soon?
Newest book: September 1, 2006: A Birthday Cake Is No Ordinary Cake, and follows the Earth in its 365 day circle around the Sun, while we collect ingredients for a birthday cake!
A publisher determines the paperback schedule of a book, and my books have not been turned into paperbacks, due to their continued use as hardbacks, except for:
On the Day You Were Born, Spanish edition
Out of the Ocean, Paper, English
All other books are hardcover:
On the Day You Were Born
Out of the Ocean
Miss Alaineus, A Vocabulary Disaster
The Incredible Water Show
A Birthday Cake Is No Ordinary Cake
Illustrated books:
In the Space of the Sky, written by Richard Lewis
We Got Here Together, written by Kim Stafford
The Animal That Drank Up Sound, written by William Stafford (out of print/rare)
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