With a COVID-19 vaccine in the works, it looks like we will shortly be able to go back to holding public events. Here are a few tips to help you get started.
Book fairs and other local events can be a great way for authors to connect with readers and make new fans. They are immensely valuable. But at the same time it can be hard for first-timers to get the most out of an event.
That was certainly true for me. I didn’t used to go to events very often because I find meeting new people is stressful. But I have had to force myself to leave my comfort zone so that I could build my web design business. I had to go out and meet potential clients face to face for the exact same reason that authors should go meet readers.
If you wait for readers to come find you, you’re going to get lost in the crowd. There are hundreds of thousands of authors out there, all of whom are vying for attention. The following post is a mix of mistakes I made at my first trade shows and tips inspired by my time as a volunteer at book festivals and SF cons.
If you have tips you would like to share, I would love to read them in the comments.
1) Plan For Your First Book Fair in Advance
This is a piece of advice that keeps changing as I get more experience under my belt.
When I first started going to events, my planning for any given event began and ended with making sure I had spare socks and a water bottle. Once I realized I needed to invest more time in being prepared, I started making out schedules, to do lists, and talking points. But now when I plan for events I am looking at conventions and book fairs I might attend a year to 18 months from now.
The reason I plan so far in advance is that the events themselves are often planned one to two years ahead of time. Guest speakers are locked in at least a year ahead of time, and the rental agreement for the location of next year’s convention is often signed before this year’s convention begins. (In fact, I know one organizer with a convention 10 months away who is already scouting locations for the following year’s convention).
Furthermore, tables at book fairs and cons can sell out as much as six to nine months before the big day, and the window for getting a speaker or panelist invite usually closes three to six months before the opening ceremonies.
So if you want to be an active participant at an event, you need start your preparations far in advance.
2) Volunteer
One potential downside to having to plan a year in advance is that you might have to pay for a table before you know whether your investment could pay off. (Or worse yet, you might have to put a non-refundable deposit on a hotel room!)
It would be a good idea to scout an event before pulling out your wallet.
How? I have found that the best way is to sign up to be a volunteer.
You might think that you could simply attend an event as a member of the audience and give it a once-over. But I have found that being a volunteer usually gives me a much better idea how the event is run. It lets me peek behind the scenes, ask questions about the audience, and interrogate chat with exhibitors, guests, and staff.
In fact, the process of signing up to be a volunteer could tell you a lot about how well-run an event is.
Warning signs of a poorly run event:
- The organizers don’t have a process for signing up volunteers.
- They bungle your assignment. (I was once sent to staff an information desk without any information to provide to the guests.)
3) Be Prepared
When I say you should plan your activities, I don’t just mean write out a schedule or make a list of what you need to bring.
What I now do is write what are essentially business process documents that lay out every step of every activity.
- A doc for networking,
- Another one for being an exhibitor
- A doc for doing a presentation
- Another for media interviews
- I even have several that lay out what I should do if I am suddenly asked to do a presentation
Periodically I update these process docs as I learn more about promoting myself. I make a point of reading them before events so that the details are fresh in my mind.
4) Stay Sanitary
Public events such as book fairs and conventions are a cauldron of disease—and were even before the current pandemic. Each sniffle, cough, or unwashed hand could be a carrier for a bug. These days it might put you in bed for weeks, in quarantine, or even land you in the hospital.
This is why you should bring hand sanitizer, antibacterial wipes, and possibly even gloves. Don’t forget to wash your hands, and be sure to wipe down any surfaces you touch more than once. (I can’t say that this is necessary, but I do know several people who, when flying, use wet wipes to clean all the exposed metal and plastic on their seat. They say this keeps them from getting sick, and they are probably right.)
5) Bring a Camera
This one is on me.
I realized about ten minutes after I started talking to authors at my first book fair that I had neglected to bring any way to document my day. I had left my camera at home, and forgot to charge my smartphone that morning.
Don’t make my mistake; bring your smartphone so you can show your fans what you’re doing.
While I am rather camera-shy myself, I also know that as a fan I follow the activities of my favorite authors. Fans are interested in this kind of personal detail, and you will make them happy when you share it.
In fact, your fans will want to meet you in person.
6) Have Chocolate
After exhibiting at five events I can confirm what we had all suspected for years: Chocolate is the one sure-fire way to get people to approach your booth. (This is true for all book-signing events, in my experience—Anne 🙂 )
If you spend ten dollars to buy a large mixed bag of chocolate, you will make dozens of new acquaintances. (You will also have something on hand to keep your blood sugar up.) Just make sure that you put the chocolate in an attractive bowl and periodically refresh it throughout the day.
BTW, if you forget to bring chocolate, and your event is located in a hotel, check to see if there are any mints or other candies set out for attendees. You can put those in a bowl on your table and achieve almost the same effect as chocolate.
7) Put up Signs
You are only one person, and you can only carry on one conversation at a time. (Even if you have several people staffing your table, similar limitations apply.) One way to make up for this limitation is to have several inviting signs ranging from a banner hanging behind your table to smaller 8.5 x 11 signs sitting on your table.
Just remember, these are signs, not hand outs, so be sure to keep the content simple. I limit each sign to just one headline for a single topic, and I phrase the headline like a directive: “Sign up for my mailing list,” for example, or “Enter a raffle for a free X! or “Ask me about my free service Y.”
There are many options, and 8.5 x 11 signs can be printed at home. So there’s no reason not to try several ideas until you find the ones that work the best.
8) Share your Schedule
That’s why you should tell your fans about your events in advance so they can meet you at the event. In the weeks leading up to your first event, be sure to announce both on social media and via your newsletter that you are going to be at a book fair, show, etc.
You might even want to set up an event schedule on your author site so your fans can plan ahead and make sure they have room in their schedules.
9) Mailing List
All the authors I have met at cons and book fair brought books to sell, and they all came prepared to talk about their books, careers, and other topics, but do you know what I would have done?
I would have found a way to continue the conversation after the event. To wit, I would have brought a tablet so I could let attendees sign up for my mailing list. (Coincidentally, this is something I only thought of after my first trade show.)
Trust me, if attendees like the genre of books you write, they will want to sign up for your mailing list. There were five or six authors at one event that I wanted to connect with later. I would have signed up for their mailing lists if they had offered the option. Instead, I had to type their names into my smartphone.
10) Flyers Good, Bookmarks Better
Do you know what would also be a good way to continue the conversation after the show?
Bring flyers that you can give to attendees. Seriously, it is SOP in almost every industry that exhibitors have flyers to hand out to attendees. This is one of the better ways to get an attendee more info so they can decide whether to follow up later.
Authors can adapt this practice by having 4” by 6” flyers printed either at a local print shop or online. The flyers can talk about an author’s latest book, the main characters, or the series. You can even have more than one flyer printed, tailoring each one to a specific topic.
On the other hand, flyers can be rather expensive ($0.20 to $1 each) compared to the price of most indie-published ebooks, so authors should probably run a cost-benefit analysis first to see whether the flyers are worth the investment.
In the three years since I started getting flyers printed, I have found that Vistaprint.com had good prices for flyers. But I have also found that bookmarks are much cheaper and a lot more interesting. I get my bookmarks printed at NextDayFlyers.com. They cost about the same as business cards (three to five cents each) if you order them in large quantities.
11) Flyers, redux
Here’s something I had to learn the hard way: If you’re going to talk about your planned activities such as weekly readings at a public library, then it would really help to have a flyer to give out to those who are interested. Some people may remember what you told them about an activity, and others may make a note so they can Google it later, but the way to make sure they don’t forget is to give them a flyer,
12) Canopy
The usual advice on prepping for an event is to do a dry run. Set up your table. Make sure all the signs can stand up on their own and that your displays do not look cluttered.
That is all great advice, but based on what I saw at one event, I think that when prepping for an event authors should make sure that they also go out in their back yard and set up the canopy they are going to bring to the book fair.
The standard collapsible canopy is really easy to set up once you know how. All it takes is watching one YouTube video and setting it up one time in your backyard. You’ll learn details like there are four specific spots where Velcro on the canopy’s cloth attaches to Velcro on the metal frame (attach the Velcro and the cloth will be lined up correctly). Also, you can tell the frame is properly assembled when the bracing “clicks” into place.
I helped set up a couple dozen canopies on that event, and I can tell you that a little bit of prep time can mean the difference between getting the canopy set up in 90 seconds and struggling with it for half an hour. (My first one took me half an hour to set up, yes.)
As a rule, you should put a similar amount of time into setting up your displays in advance, but in my experience the canopy was the one thing that authors needed help with the most.
13) Swag
Sure, bring books to sell, but don’t stop there. An attendee might not want to buy your books (some of us prefer ebooks) but they might be interested in buying merchandise related to your books.
Remember, one of your goals is to break even or turn a profit from today’s sales. So offer posters, collectibles, bookmarks, or something else that might interest an attendee. If it’s related to your books, you should consider selling it at your table.
And even if you don’t want to sell bookmarks and other swag, you should still bring them if only to give them away. You are going to an event to find readers, but readers are going to find authors. If one takes your bookmark home then chances are the reader will check you out to see if you write books they might like.
What About eBooks?
I for one would really like to buy ebooks from the authors I meet at cons. But very few authors are equipped to sell them. Here’s a post that will give you more info on how to sell ebooks at an event.
These are a few of the things I learned the hard way; how about you? What did you learn at your first public events? Do you have any tips? Did you make any major mistakes? Did you find that chocolate helped?
