On Saturday, December 13th, I participated in my first in-person bookselling event (besides my book launch at the end of August). Here are some of the things I learned!

1) I was made aware of the opportunity after joining the Colorado Authors League (CAL), a professional organization that connects authors and provides information about events, contests, etc. Joining this organization has already proven to be quite beneficial to me in other ways, too, so I highly recommend finding one!

2) It depends on what state you’re in, but certain events (like this one) might require getting a “Multi-Event Sales Tax” license. If you’re selling books in person, you’ll need a sales tax license anyway, but this is an additional license meant for people who sell at fairs and festivals. The good news is, it was REALLY easy (and free!) to add the MEST to the normal sales tax license. I just went in to the tax office in person and had the license in hand in about twenty minutes.

3) If you’re taking credit card payments, the Square app can do pretty much everything you need without getting an additional reader. I purchased a reader, but I never ended up using it, because if you have the Square app on your phone, you can hold the “tap” cards directly to the back of your phone or add card numbers manually if the tapping isn’t working. You can also use Square to keep track of cash transactions, which is nice. I briefly considered getting a receipt book, but I’m glad I didn’t, because I didn’t need it.

4) I was really proud of my setup – I had a table runner with the Artes Reginae Press logo, my three books on stands, a price list, and my stickers and bookmarks:

But I realized pretty quickly that I’d made a big mistake: I didn’t have anything with my information on it. A business card, a QR code to my website, a link to the online versions of my book…ack! I decided that the next time I order bookmarks, I’ll put my name and bio on the back of them, together with a link to my website. Because I definitely had people ask for these things!

I also got a great idea from my good friend Andrew (Andrew D.H. Moore), who had the booth beside mine (and what a great blessing that was!): if you put a copy of a book face-down in front of the displayed one on the stand, it encourages more people to read your blurb. Sometimes they’re shy about taking the book off the stand to look at the back cover, but they will happily pick up the face-down one to look at it more closely.

5) This seems like a no-brainer, but you should have a spiel ready for each of your books. Andrew had a fantastic–and consistent–way of describing his book to everyone who came up to him. He was, of course, able to modify and improvise based on their questions. It’s important to be able to “shoot the shit” with different kinds of people on the fly and not be too rigid in your delivery. But I did not have a memorized spiel, and sometimes my attempts to describe my book in a concise and engaging manner were less than eloquent.

6) No conversation is wasted. One of the sales I made was entirely unexpected. An older gentleman happened to be standing in front of my table while his wife was chatting with the author at a table next to mine (not Andrew; an author named Laurel McHargue who is absolutely wonderful). We struck up a conversation about the Christmas market itself, then meandered through pleasantries about where we live and what we do for a living. He was intrigued to hear that I’m a Classics professor, and we started talking about my Essential Argonautica. Though he claimed not to be a big reader and certainly hadn’t been planning to buy a book, he was blown away to learn about this epic he’d never heard about, and he ended up purchasing a copy!

Even if a conversation doesn’t end in a sale (and most of mine didn’t), each one gives you the chance to practice engaging with different kinds of folks, which is a skill that even people like me, whose careers are predicated on being able to talk to people, need to practice.

7) It’s not (all) about the sales. Yeah, yeah, yeah, this sounds like I’m trying to justify my poor performance to myself. But actually, I did fine. I ended up selling 9 books in 6 hours. That may not seem like a lot, but I’ve heard from several fellow authors that it’s well within the norm for these kinds of events. At the very least, it was enough to cover my costs (table fee, printed books, merch, gas, etc.) with a little bit of profit. But I had a great time networking with other local authors (in fact, I might be joining Laurel McHargue on her podcast sometime in the future!), and several people took pictures of my books with the stated intention of looking them up later. And hopefully the nine books I did sell will lead to at least a couple of recommendations and reviews. A woman can dream!

Fellow authors/vendors: do you have any additional tips for in-person events you can share?

In Proximum, Regina Vestra

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