If you get my Newsletter, you know that I had my first big book fair event as an author on Saturday. The Get Lit Grown Up Book Fair hosts authors, bookish vendors, bars, and food in various locations throughout the metroplex.
I had never been to one as a reader either but had definitely wanted to. My friend and coauthor, Renee Edwards, and I decided to share a table again. Having had a less than successful experience in September for the small author showcase at a local public library, to say I was nervous would be an understatement. I was terrified that it would be a repeat of zero interest and zero sales.
So, of course I started coming up with new ideas the week before the event.
This was, by far, the best last-minute idea. I made this sign and had a large D20 for people to roll for prizes. I also had a dice tray with a regular set of ttRPG dice set on the table to grab attention. When people would eye the dice, I would ask if they wanted to roll for a prize. Of course, they all did. I’d have them roll on the floor and it would bounce around and attract even more attention and pull people to the table to find out what was going on. Definitely glad I came up with this idea. But I made a mistake. The “stoked” level was too large, and I ran out of zines! I need to split it into 11-15 and 16-19, but that means I need another level label and another prize. If you’ve got any ideas, please leave a comment!
Another last-minute plan that changed several times over the course of the week was to display attention grabbers that would help shoppers to see what the main themes of my book were. At first I was going to bring an easel for this, but I ultimately decided I didn’t want to lug around an easel and used the tiered shelf that ended up being too small for books, but just right for the attention grabbers!
One of the other reasons I was super nervous was because I had signed up to participate in Hollander & Rozanov: A Queermance Meetup. I realized at the beginning of the week that the name of the meetup was referring to the book and HBO show Heated Rivalry, which I had not read and I started to panic. I quickly downloaded the book and read it Wednesday and Thursday evenings, just in case we were going to be asked questions about the book. It wasn’t until Friday that I got an email from the moderator letting me know what to expect. I was definitely glad I’d read the book, but I confessed to the audience that I hadn’t until just a few days before and had not yet watched the show. Hopefully that didn’t turn anyone off!
I had left my phone with Renee, in case someone wanted to buy a book (and then gave her the wrong passcode to unlock it!), so when the moderator asked us for our recommendations, I drew a complete blank! I’d had a list on my phone but couldn’t think of more than a few recommendations off the top of my head. I felt awful about that and have second guessed at least half of the comments I made, but in the end, I think it went well. And when I got back to the table, Renee said that someone had come by twice wanting to purchase my book but couldn’t because I’d given her the wrong code. That person came back a third time and bought the book!
Not only that, but I had ELEVEN people make purchases and several others that sounded very interested. Granted, that could have just been for show and won’t result in anything, but I got a ton of practice talking about my book and getting people interested.
Yesterday, as I scrolled through social media, I spotted a post that Get Lit had reposted to their story.
It’s my book! Of all the things this person purchased, MY BOOK was one of them!!! I might have gotten super giddy and texted half the people I know to share. Not only that, but the original post was gone from the original story, so I messaged the individual and overexplained myself to ask if I could get a copy of the photo (that’s how I got it).
I am riding high off of this event. There are eleven people that chose to purchase my book over all of the other books in the fair. I never got a chance to look around, but the author right next to us had people come up to her to say they had come simply because they’d seen she would be there. I’m pretty sure I recognized some of the covers.
There will be another Get Lit in April that will be just 10 minutes from my house. I asked Renee if she wanted to do it with me, but she’ll be out of town. So now I guess I need to conquer my fear of doing an event alone! Eek!
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