Book Fairs, Festivals, Craft Shows

 

    Authors face a difficult task AFTER they finish a book and it's published. What could that be, you say? Promoting and selling those books. Yes, authors are expected to promote and help sell their books even if they go through a traditional publisher. So, how does one do that? Book fairs, festivals, and craft shows offer an opportunity for authors to sell books and pocket more of the profit.

    Where does a writer find a fair, festival or show? Look around the community, ask people, talk to other authors for suggestions. In my small community, several towns near by have harvest festivals each fall. The one in the town closest to me offers spaces at reasonable prices. The last year I attended, even with not nice weather, I sold quite a large number of books. Plus, I met people who wanted to know how to find my books and how to know when a new one came out. I had currents sales and possible future ones.

    One thing I discovered, having a booth at a festival that doesn't feature books and authors or at a craft show bring in more sales than having a book at a book festival or any event with more than four or five authors. With a large number of authors selling books at the same place and time, customers often go to the authors they know or whose names are familiar. Therefore, customers are overwhelmed with the large number of offerings.

    One author I know goes to some event almost every weekend, and he no longer has to work another job. He sells hundreds to thousands of dollars in books each event. It can be done.

    Authors who have their books at a festival, fair, or show need to remember to interact with the attendees. No, I don't mean waylay them and try to twist their arms to buy. First, be friendly. Ask people passing by what they like to read. When they tell their interests, guide them to books you have that meet one of their interests. If you don't have a genre they prefer, tell them just a bit about what you write and tell them where they might find what they prefer. You may not sell one of your books, but you will impress someone who may tell someone about your books. If nothing else, they will be amazed at your honesty.

    Promoting and selling your books may not be among your favorite things to do. You may hate marketing, but to be successful, you must. If James Patterson, as famous as he is, must promote his books, those of us not in the same lofty sales bracket must do much more than he does. Therefore, we need to find opportunities. Books fairs, festivals, and craft shows can be what works for you.

   

                                                                Vivian Zabel
                                                                Author, editor, publisher
                                                                VivianZabel.website

       

Do you help other writers?

The question is when aspiring or seasoned writers have a question, need a critique, or something else, are you there to help.

Writers should be available to help other writers of any level with question about the writing and publishing process. Writers are a special group of creative people that need to support other writers whenever they can.

As an author, do you give other writers your time on social media sites, groups, or forums? This is helpful to other writers, to build a reputation, and become wider known online. We all want recognition for our work. Online networking and social media sites are what people other than other authors search.

By connecting with other authors on sites like Facebook, Google +, Stumbleupon, Pinterest, and others where you can share links about your blog(s), books, author website(s), advice for aspiring writers, how to contact you, or just to read about your latest project.

 

Do you cross-refer?

This is a simple way to help other authors. Place a hyperlink on your website to another author's and a reciprocal link from his or her website to yours. This is a way for each of you to help with traffic and better positioning on search engines for both of you.

There are many ways for authors to help authors establishing a web presence. Authors need a web presence if they plan to build an audience for books or an event like a book signing, radio spot, anywhere an author will be out in public. You can’t sell books if readers don’t know about it.

Do your part and help other writers.

Robert Medak

Freelance Writer/Blogger/Editor/Reviewer/

http://www.authorsden.com/robertmedak

http://rjmedak.wordpress.com/

http://twitter.com/freelancewrtr

The wonderful, terrible power of words

by Jean James and Mary James


There is no more important work in this world, no greater duty, than to help others to keep up their courage. He is our best friend whose words of cheerful confidence give more life to the heart; and he is our enemy who, by his words of doubt and his spirit of fear, saps this ardour, and take from us our courage.

Anon

(Nineteenth century writer)

The wonderful, terrible power of words:

There is no work on earth as challenging as creating something. It generally involves risk taking, thinking out of the box, and, at times, stepping out of the box. The more daring our venture, the greater our chance of setbacks and discouragements. But what if everyone gave in to doubt and fear? What if everyone did everything alike? What a dull world this would be.

How many times have we heard, “It’s too late for anything now,” or “It’s never going to happen,” or “Just resign yourself, it wasn’t meant to be”? How can anyone succeed when they're loaded down with doubt? It's like when a computer picks up a virus and gets slower and slower as it's bogged down with spam.Too much discouragement from others can be death to our faith and our will to accomplish, just as our own dismal words might kill someone’s bright dreams. We might be surprised what effect our words have on others.

Give the gift of words, spoken from the heart:

As we go out to conferences, book fairs, and other public events this last half of 2011, we want to remember we’re not just there to receive, we’re there to give. The more we give, the more we will come home with when it’s all over.

Below is a partial list of literary events coming up in the next few months. Try to attend a few. They can be a wonderful help and a great opportunity to give and receive encouragement.

Upcoming secular writing conferences:

July, 2011, 25th Iowa Summer Writing Festival, Iowa City, IA,
http://www.continuetolearn.uiowa.edu/iswfest/

September 23-25, 2011, Southern California Writers' Conference, Los Angeles, CA

http://www.writersconference.com/la

Nov.3-6, 2011, Sanibel Island Writers Conference, Sanibel Island, Fla

http://www.fgcu.edu/siwc/

November 11-13, 2011, New York Writers Workshop Perfect Pitch Fiction Conference, NY, NY
http://newyorkwritersworkshop.com/new-york-writers-workshop-perfect-pitch-fiction-conference/

Upcoming Christian conferences:

July 24-29, 2011: Montrose Christian Writers Conference, Montrose, PA

http://www.montrosebible.org/writers.htm

August 10-13, 2011: Greater Philly Christian Writers Conference, Langhorne, PA

http://www.writehisanswer.com/philadelphia/  

Sept. 8-10, 2011: Catch the Wave Writer’s Conference, Atlanta, Georgia, http://blog.christianauthorsguild.org/cag-conference/

Oct. 7-8, 2011: Susquehanna Valley Writers Conference, Lewisburg, PA

http://susquehannavalleywritersworkshop.wordpress.com/

November 2-6, 2011: CLASS Christian Writers Conference, Ghost Ranch, Albuquerque, NM

http://www.classeminars.org/Events/Writers-Conference/

Book Fairs and Festivals:

These are generally inexpensive or free to the public and are a great place to find new books and make valuable contacts in the writing industry.

9/23-25 2011, Baltimore Book Festival, http://www.baltimorebookfestival.com

10/14-16/2011 Southern Festival of Books (Nashville), http://tn-humanities.org/festival/index.php  

10/24-25/2011National Book Festival (Washington, DC), http://www.loc.gov/bookfest

11/13-20, 2011 Miami Book Fair International, http://www.miamibookfair.com

We intended to post the live-action book trailer of our new novel, Sparrow Alone on the Housetop, in this blog, but we’re hopelessly behind schedule. We have taped most of the scenes, but the editing is still before us, and we’re working on four other projects due to come out in the same month. Now I know how it feels to stand under a giant tsunami! Guess we should run a little faster. The trailer will be out shortly, along with more info on how to handle the final stages of that type video production.

By the way, we could use a couple more reviewers or influencers for the novel. If anyone is interested in this, please email us at: jameswriters@yahoo.com

Jean James

Mary James

yearofthesparrow.com