Bloomington Book Fair
On February 27, the Bloomington Art Center held its annual book fair. This is the second time that I had a table there. Last year I had a great day; met a lot of fine folk, made some contacts, etc. I pretty much did everything I had set out to do ~ except sell my book. My grand total sales of last year = one book. This year, damn it, I was going to double that. One minor disappontment I had going into it this year ~ I was hoping that my new novel “Silent Kill” would be out. Even though I was originally told it won’t be out until the second quarter of 2010, well, I was still hoping. Okay, it wasn’t. I’m happy to say that I got over it pretty quickly. One thing I did notice different from last year was my location. Last year I was in the middle of a line in a hallway off of the main room. This year I had a table in the main area by one of the exits. It turned out I couldn’t have been placed in a better spot. I got to greet people as they came in and give it one last shot as they left. Another big difference this time around was I had experience. Last year I sat behind my table with a forced smile and nodded at people as they passed, waiting for them to strike conversation. Looking back – that is not a good way to try and sell books (or anything else for that matter). I admit that it’s still an effort, but I am starting to crawl out of my shell – and it made a difference. I’m not saying that I sold a ton of books, but for an unknown author mixed in with about one hundred or so (give or take a few) other unknown authors, and a few popular ones, i was quite pleased with myself. Let’s just say I far surpassed my goal of selling twice as many as last year.
March 5th, 2010 at 12:14 PM
David, Nice picture (still trying to figure out your face expression
Glad that you had a great time there.
August 19th, 2010 at 9:19 PM
educate me.