Re: Subject: Re: Finding Places To Speak

**"* C* <y*@ispnet.ca>**

Bruce Zimmerman wrote:

I came to the conclusion along time ago that public speaking is a non returning  activity except as a marketing tool to expand my radio listenership. Another Gardening Writer friend was offered to do a talk. For a hour talk he charges  $1000 plus expenses. He finds that this chases away the most unwanted requests. 

Here, here. I've given up garden talks myself and teaching gardening courses. I gave slide lectures for about 10 years, and taught some gardening courses too at a local botanical garden and at a community college, plus I designed gardens and did garden consulting for awhile.

Basically, I got sick and tired of being underpaid for teaching, and lecturing meant usually meant arriving in a town I didn't know after dark, trying to find my way to where the local hort society or garden club was meeting. And for what? The year my book, Clueless in the Garden, was published I did a number of talks to publicize it. My total for 10 talks was $1600. The biggest garden show in Canada, Toronto's Canada Blooms, only pays $100 for a talk.

And who wants you to give a talk? Garden clubs and hort societies, and they all think $250/talk is a lot of money. You can't charge a couple of grand for a lecture unless you're a well-known gardening TV personality (and aren't they few and far between these days?), prolific author (also not too many of those in the gardening publishing these days) or a guru plant nursery person.

I also used to open our country garden to bus tours and I charged $150 - $250, but I've quit that too. I've basically decided there's no money in hort writing/education, except if you have a website that gets good traffic and does well with Google ads. Thankfully with my website, there's little aggravation, no getting lost on road, and no weeding.  

Just my two-cents worth as a fading garden maven...

Yvonne Cunnington
www.flower-gardening-made-easy.com
http://countrygardener.blogspot.com
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