I’m back from the Los Angeles Festival of Books (LATFB). And I have stories to tell. If you’ve never sat in a booth at a major book festival with your book, I recommend it. But I have to tell you that it will not be a relaxing way to spend an afternoon or an entire weekend.
First, you have to decide how many books to take with you—how many books could you conceivably sell? You must figure out how to make your booth or your booth space appealing and how to attract potential customers to your booth. If your book is a mystery with an attractive cover, create professional posters featuring your book cover and/or have a banner that says, “mystery.” Use table cover colors in shades that show off your books. And then come up with something to say to visitors to your booth.
If you have a nonfiction book on quilting, aviation, gardening, health and wellness or how to sell an ebook, for example, post something that will attract readers of this particular book. Just like you would with your website, make sure that your presentation represents your product—that people will know at first glance what you are all about.
You’ll want to write and rehearse a short spiel describing your book, for example. And also practice discussing your book in more depth in case someone is interested in knowing more. Engage people—reach out and ask passersby, “Does your child like to read?” “Do you like mysteries (quilting, gardening, cats) etc.?”
And most of all, when you plan to participate in a book festival, expect that the biggest positive to come out of it will be the exposure you get for your book. Exposure is what you are after. Sure, you may sell a few books and I hope that you do. But there are going to be a whole lot of people who will pick up your book, talk to you, maybe just stop and read your poster, who will not purchase your book at that time. Those people are as important—maybe more so than those who buy your book on the spot. Why? They now know about your book. They’ve heard of you. Maybe they spoke with you and learned something about you and why you wrote this book. They may have picked up one of your advertising bookmarks and perhaps they even left their name and email address on your sign-up sheet.
Each and every one of those people are potential customers. Now, if they see you book at Amazon or they happen across your website or they read a review of your book someplace or they hear you speak locally, they will remember you and will be more apt to purchase the book the next time they have the opportunity.
Those who signed up with you for a free garden planting schedule, a short-story mystery you wrote, a list of 10 tips for ebook authors, etc., are definitely potential customers. Now they have received something free from you and that freebie contains more about your book as well as ordering information. AND you have their email address and you can contact these people when you have a book signing, a new book out or won an award, for example.
Book festivals are a lot of fun, a lot of work and can be extremely important to authors who take every advantage of the opportunities offered.
That’s just what we did in the SPAWN booth at the LATFB over the weekend. We sold books and we made some great contacts. I’ll be writing more about our experience and about book festivals in general throughout the week. So let me know if you have questions.