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| Credit: The Blogger |
I would have been
happy if people stopped to simply flip through my books at my vendor
table at Sac Comic-Con last Sunday. Since that was my first vendor
table at a convention, I really didn’t expect to sell anything. I
sold five copies of my books!
The first sale was
actually early on in the convention—within the first 10 minutes of
opening! A father with his three kids stopped to look. I started
giving my pitch for each book and, before I could finish, he said he
would take one copy of each: The Fool’s Illusion and “CircaSixty Years Dead”. Later in the day, two more people made purchases at different
times each. I also traded copies with the fellow author whose table
was right next to mine, Jay Norry, for
two books from his Zombie Zero series . We suggested doing reviews for each other’s books once
we read them. I’ll leave reviews at Amazon for sure but may have
fuller ones here. However, I may not be to do anything until the
beginning of the new year because, as I told Jay, I’ve been quite
behind on my reading. I’ll try to hustle it up a bit, though; I’m
always too ready for the next read!
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| I wasn't able to have a banner made so I made this. Good enough for a first vendor table. Photo Credit: The Blogger |
So I was really
delighted when my books sold. However, I keep in mind that displaying
your books for sale at live events isn’t so much about selling them
than about promoting them and engaging with the community. The goal
should be to start conversations with people who show the least bit
of interest in your work. Talking to people about not only your own
but other authors’ work in a genre you share interest in makes you
known both as an author and a fellow reader. As long as you have
plenty of swag with you, including business cards, that identify your
social media presence then your book promotion can go a long ways. I
also think what helped was providing free Halloween candy for the
kids (and adults if they wanted). Many of the people who showed
interest in what I was selling had their kids with them, who I can’t
sell to or allow to look at the books since they contain mature
content, but having candy present for them shows a sense
of community on the vendor’s part.
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| Credit: The Blogger |
So
presenting your work at special events, especially those like Sac
Comic-Con where your target audience is at,
in my case the sci
fi/fantasy crowd, is primarily about two things: 1)
Making your author
presence known in the community; and 2)
Bonding through
conversation over
similar interests that relate to the subject matter of your books.
If the sales don’t come at the event, they will eventually come
sometime down the line. The more people who know about your work, the
more chance that they’ll tell others about it.
I want to thank all
those who purchased books at my table and I hope they enjoy the
reads. I also encourage them to leave honest reviews at the books’
Amazon pages since that will help me improve stories
for the future. I also want to thank Jay Norry for the great
conversations we had about our work and con experiences and for
coming up with the idea to trade each others’ books. I hope to see
you again at a future con, Jay!
Next time I’ll try
to have some Halloween content here.
Until then . . .
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