Book Events: The Value
of Behind-the-Scenes Moments
By Jenna Elizabeth Johnson, Coastal Dunes Branch
I have spoken to you before on the importance of book events and putting up a good storefront. You have heard me stress that although you may not sell tons of books, the exposure is so very worth it. I’m not reneging on any of that – it is still essential to the marketing and branding yourself as an author.
What I’d like to focus on for a moment, however, is the behind-the-scenes lessons and valuable insight you get by being a vendor or partner author at these events. While at Tucson Comic Con, I uncovered two new approaches to presenting myself as a legitimate, well-branded author.
First, one of the other vendors and I got to talking and she told me she visits local libraries and offers her expertise as an indie author in exchange for the chance to sell her books after the presentation. Before, I only approached libraries offering to do a reading. They often turned me down – after all, who the heck was I? But now I would like to try this new method: offer myself as a well-versed indie author who has been in the industry for several years in exchange for selling books. I may be turned away, but at least now I have something to offer that the general public might be interested in.
Secondly, during our down time my author pals and I came up with an idea to put together a slide show of our cover art with some reviews people have left on Amazon and Goodreads. We will then let this mini movie run on a laptop during our next big event to draw in an audience. I’ve been working on my own smaller version this week with the goal of testing it out at the event I’m taking part in after Thanksgiving. Perhaps having a live video (with some music maybe) will work. Or perhaps it won’t, but I’m willing to try.
My point with these two examples, my fellow authors, is to express how much you can learn by spending time with other authors in situations where your mind is thinking about how to better market your books and yourself. When you do take part in a book event with your peers, keep an open mind and strike up conversations with them when the traffic at your booth is low. You never know what new, exciting idea you might come up with and that, in my opinion, is definitely worth all the extra work and stress of participating in book events.
A longer version of this piece originally appeared in
the Coastal Dunes newsletter Coastal Currents,
December 2016, president’s message.