The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books is over for another year. It has been held at UCLA campus for 15 or 16 years. This year, we went to USC. The most common small talk topic throughout the two-day event was with regard to the new venue. “How do you like it?” “Are you selling books here?” “What’s your opinion of the event this year?”
And there were a variety of responses: “It’s more spread out.” “I keep getting lost.” “It seems to be a different crowd.” “I’m selling more books.” I’m selling fewer.” “I love it!” “I hate it!” Everyone had an opinion.
It seems that the event was more well-attended than those in the past. Attendance usually hits around 140,000. We heard that nearly 100,000 people came through the gates on Saturday alone.
As most of you know, I am the executive director of SPAWN (Small Publishers, Artists and Writers Network) and we had two booths. We accommodated 7 of our members who came to sell their books from the booth and each of them had a different experience. Some sold books, some did not. All of them told me that they learned a lot about book marketing and promotion, book festivals, how to engage customers, SPAWN and they all had a great time networking with other members and talking to potential customers about their books.
We handed out around 450 SPAWN catalogs and signed up about 200 people who are interested in receiving the free SPAWN e-newsletter. Our former executive director and I talked to well over 100 people about their book projects and about the benefits of joining SPAWN. My voice is nearly gone today.
We’re currently in the process of tallying up our members’ book sales, but it appears it is around 75 books. Two members sold none. So the average is probably around 15 books each.
I’ve been super busy this morning unpacking, counting my money, charging credit cards (one was declined, darn it), welcoming new SPAWN members (we had 3 sign up this weekend), etc. I still have to go through the mountain of business cards I collected and note what action I want to take with each one. And I have to sign around 200 people up for the SPAWN newsletter.
If you would like to start receiving SPAWNews, go to http://www.spawn.org/subscribe.htm You will receive an email from us. Be sure to click and confirm. You will receive our newsletter in your email box every first of each month.
Let me know if you have questions: PLFry620@yahoo.com
Are you planning to attend a book festival with your books this year? You might be interested in reading my article, “How to Work a Book Festival So It Works For You.” http://www.matilijapress.com/articles/promo_bookFestival.htm