Unlock a Complimentary Visit from an Epic Author
for Your School, Event, or Bookshop
Epic Tales arranges lively, engaging author-storyteller visits that inspire a love of reading, writing, and storytelling among listeners.
There’s no separate visit fee: you unlock the visit when enough books are purchased, pre-ordered, sold, or sponsored.
Why are the visits complimentary? Epic Tales is a publishing company, and our visits are designed to help books reach readers. That means a visit may be supported by a school book order, family pre-orders, event book sales, sponsorship, or a mix of all these.
Trusted by leading literacy organisations, schools, and arts events
We produced much-loved YouTube videos for this renowned literacy platform
We provided free online literacy engagement training resources for this key literacy charity
We’re a preferred supplier of Reading for Pleasure teacher training resources for English Hubs
Our author-storytellers have supported the Glastonbury Festival Kidz Zone every festival since 2016
Over 20 years, our author-storytellers have inspired and entertained hundreds of thousands of young people at schools, events, and community settings across the UK and beyond
How It Works
Epic Tales does not charge for author-storyteller visits. Instead, you receive a complimentary visit when enough books are sold, pre-ordered, sponsored, or otherwise placed with readers.
1. Tell Us Who the Visit is For
School, bookshop, event, or other setting.
2. Readers Get Books
You buy for them, or they can buy or pre-order themselves and upload their receipt.
3. Enjoy Your Visit!
We arrange your live author-storyteller visit proven to boost reading engagement and confidence.
Need Help Making it Work?
If you would love a visit but cannot place a qualifying order from your own budget, we may be able to help you unlock your visit by providing materials to encourage family orders, connecting you with nearby schools, calling local businesses for sponsorship, and more.
Ways to Unlock Your Visit:
- Encourage orders from family and friends with support from our promotional flyers and bookmarks.
- Partner with other local organisations and schools.
- Approach local sponsors.
For Schools
Bring reading, writing, and storytelling alive with visits from author-storytellers trained and experienced in providing engaging school visits.
Our assemblies online or in-person have been shown to inspire enthusiasm for reading among learners, time and time again. We also offer sessions for classes and year groups that channel their thirst for stories into writing, oracy, and/or book-hunting.
Our author-storytellers use a unique in-house technique to ensure every learner in your school participates in the stories being told. What’s more, if you wish, we can guarantee every class or year group hears a different story, equipping them to share the experience with each other long after our visit.
Whenever our author-storytellers are with you for a full day, they will also happily stay an extra hour after school with your staff to offer CPD in using storytelling as a teaching tool. After all, we’ve been at the cutting edge of science-backed storytelling interventions since our European Lifelong Learning project of 2013.
Ideal for…
- Reading for Pleasure
- oracy
- creative writing
- engaging reluctant/resistant readers
- whole school book excitement
What Schools Notice
“Epic Tales has visited King’s on more than one occasion. They have always proved a huge hit with staff and children alike. I have no hesitation in recommending them to you.”
“We’ve noticed a big improvement in our children’s confidence, and parents have really got onboard.”
“It has been really, really great for our children’s vocab expansion, their confidence… We’ve received so many positive comments from parents.”
For Events
Our author-storytellers are trained and experienced in providing energetic and engaging storytelling for children’s festivals, summer schools, libraries, community events, and indeed anywhere there’s a family audience.
Sessions can be shaped around storytelling, books, Q&A, and signings, and can often be tailored to a particular event theme.
For Bookshops
Support pre-order campaigns, customer relationships, book launches, and more with our author-storytellers who are all trained and experienced in providing exciting, enthralling public events.
Bookshops who sell enough of our books can often arrange a visit for their local school, boosting their engagement with their local community, and then have the author-storyteller draw crowds to their stores directly for a book signing that same evening.
Arrange a Visit
Let us know some details about your need for an Epic author-storyteller, and we will be in touch soon to let you know how you can qualify for a complimentary visit.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the visit really free?
Visits in mainland UK are entirely complimentary when a threshold of book sales is met, inclusive or travel and accommodation (if required).
For visits beyond mainland UK – including Northern Ireland, Isle of Wight, and countries beyond the UK – we will ask you only to cover the cost of flights and/or ferries.
I've heard it's possible to win an author visit to a school of my choice if I buy one of your books. Is that the same thing?
No, that’s a bonus extra! We occasionally offer author-visits as special promotions for certain books – visit epictales.co.uk/win to view our latest promotion.
If you order a promoted title, you’ll be entered into a draw to win a visit for a school of your choice – but your order can still count towards a complimentary visit if a qualifying order value is met. Ask the school or your bookshop to get in touch with us.
What is the qualifying order value?
The value of book sales required to unlock your complimentary visit is dependant upon your event. Get in touch through the form above to explore your options.
Can we just pay for an author visit?
Epic Tales is not a booking agency for our author-storytellers. We can only arrange an author-storyteller visit in return for book orders and/or pre-orders.
However, we aim to ensure our qualifying order values are similar to what you would expect to pay for an author-storyteller visit alone. And if you’re not sure what to do with the books, we can help you find local families, charities, and other good causes to donate them to.
Can schools qualify if their families buy books?
Absolutely – we encourage this! All you need to do is ask your families, staff, and friends to visit epictales.co.uk/upload and send us a photo or copy of their receipt – or, if it’s a digital receipt (e.g. through Waterstones.com), they can forward it to upload@epictales.co.uk, taking care to include the name and postcode of the school they’re supporting.
What do you mean by 'author-storytellers trained and experienced in providing storytelling'?
To our knowledge, we are the only book publisher that trains all our authors in the art of oral storytelling, ensuring they are guaranteed to enthral all audiences.
Are your visits always in person?
We also offer online visits. These are best when there are practicality issues with sending an author-storyteller to your location, and can also be unlocked with smaller order values.