Not in So Many Words

Yesteday, I had my 'interview' with the Jewish Book Council for whom I gave a version of the two-minute presentation that I plan to give in May at their Meet the Author event. My two minutes clocked in at close to three, but that's only because I had been rehearsing and cutting it since that morning, where it first clocked in at nine minutes.

It turns out that there's not a lot you can say in two minutes to people who haven't read the book. My jokes got deleted ("save them for your road presentations"); not even all the highlights.


I guess you can't always trust information online that a two-minute speech equals about 250-300 words. I didn't count mine I as I spoke, but I had had around 300 to start with, and not that many of them are left. I want to make a good impression and get invited to as many cities as possible, but it's going to be difficult to stand out in that little time when the audience will probably hear from, my guess is, 30 people each day. I guess that's what the reception afterward is for; that's when to really go into sales mode.