Marketing preparations for the 7th Annual NW Book Festival

I have been accepted to the 7^th Annual NW Book Festival, July 25^th in downtown Portland at Pioneer Courthouse Square. Last year they had over 3,500 people attend with over seventy independent authors. I am excited to be involved is such a large event. It will be my first as a published author.

So how does one go about preparing for such an event? How do you make the most out of the contacts you will have an opportunity to make at a festival like this? How many books should you bring? (My books are print-on-demand, so books that are bought are out-of-pocket expense for me.) How will I get readers to come to my booth and, better yet, buy from my booth? So many questions that luckily, I have the background to answer because I have a history that includes ‘marketing.’

My first question was how many folks attended last year. I procured that information from the wonderful lady in charge of the event. The area the festival is held in is an open air square. No admission. No central gate, so Veronica did now know an exact figure. However, she said Haagen Dazs gave ice cream cones away last year and they did keep track. They gave away a whopping 3,500 cones. Well, you know not everyone stood in line for an ice cream cone no matter how delectable Haagen Dazs. This tells me there was a huge crowd at the last festival.

Veronica told me some authors sold out, but other authors sold nothing. This tells me there were authors that did not know how to work the crowd. I have found that many authors are shy. I suppose that is why they have taken up writing in the first place. They have escaped into their dream worlds and are quite happy there, but in those worlds in not where you sell books. You can’t just sit behind a table and wait for the reader to come to you. And, once they come to you, you can’t just let them look, you need a pitch, something to entice them.

Let me break this down into five areas of preparation; publicity, set-up, materials, working the crowd, and pitch.

Publicity

The event coordinators gave options to advertise our books in their mailings and newsletter, but neither Cheri, or I, had the money to participate at the time. That doesn’t mean we have to miss out. It just means we have to do a little more work and we indie authors know how to get that done.

A few months back I read “6 Steps to Free Publicity” by Marcia Yudk. One of the important steps this little gem of a book talks about is developing a Media Kit. This is an online, as well as hard-copy, resource of you as an author. It contains your bio, both short and long, your contact information, social media links, lists of interviews, reviews, podcasts, YouTube presentations, product sheets, and downloadable jpegs of all your covers. 

Here is the link for mine if you would like to review it. Media Kit 

I steered mine to the middle of the road from what I saw on other author’s sites. You can go more intense if you have more to offer. I have only been at this for two years, so mine is not stark, but not over the top either.

Two weeks prior to the event I will send a hard-copy to each of the two newspapers in town and the four local TV stations. I will have ferreted out the proper person to direct it to by then and will give them a link to the online version in case they wish to copy and print something. I will follow that up with another “News Release.” You can find a standard template for these releases in the book listed above.

I will pray for a slow news day.

I imagine they will be covering the event even without my encouragement based on the fact that we are a reading town and this is a large event which is being publicized by the festival coordinators. I want to get them to our tent. I will send a cover letter with the hard copy giving them our tent number. I will tell them I am an internationally read author with a following of over 74,000 readers and that if they are interested, I have reserved a copy of my book for them to pick up free at my tent.

In addition to these media kits and news releases, I created a poster and will post that at work, in our school library, in the libraries I have done reading at and on my blog, Facebook, Google+, tsu, Twitter and Goodreads, because you never know where your readers might be. 

Set-Up

Basics that were required by the festival rules were a tent, table, chairs, and bags to pack our sales in. Simple enough. You could rent the first three from the event manager. My partner, Cheri, and I decided to supply our own. We each had a chair, she had the tables – a six foot and a four foot. She thought she could use the tent again and opted to buy one. We will be on a corner, so having two tables, one for each author will be handy. I have seventeen titles, she has six.

Now for something to make our tent stand out from the seventy other tents in the square. Cheri and I both write dragon books. She has children and adult, I have middle-school to adult, so we cover all reading levels. Even though I also write scifi, paranormal and memoirs, the idea is to get them to the tent. Cheri left me in charge of marketing. I chose dragons as our theme.

I purchased two 36” dragon balloons. We will fly these over the tent. The square is a modified amphitheater, so when I am out working the crowd, I can point or just say, “My tent is the one with the dragon balloons.” 

I also have the very first ‘Dragon Selfie.’ It was something Kitsooki of Deviant Art put together for me of Farloft, my dragon, taking a selfie with his other dragon friends on Twitter. As you can see, it is very colorful and I have a 2x3 foot mounted print which we will put on display in the tent on a tripod. This will be our eye-catcher. The thing that I hope will make the folks passing by stop and have a look. 

In addition to the above art, I am having a "Farloft Selfie Cut-out made." Don't have picture except for this sketch yet, but it will be one of those contraption you stick your hear in to have your picture taken. Everyone should have lots of fun with it.

I have the luxury of working as the manager of a printshop. With that in mind, I have gone a bit over the top with printing, but the list of what I have done, will hopefully give you ideas of what can be done on a smaller scale.

I am taking three boxes of paper. You might ask yourself, why? Well, I also have window dressing in my background and I know that the books will look a lot more impressive on several levels rather than lying flat on the table. I will arrange the reams of paper under the tablecloth to give the books height and groupings according to series. Each series will have a stand-up 4.25x5.5” pricing sign so we do not spend time talking mundane pricing when we could be pitching the book. 

As I said, I have seventeen titles; six Scifi in a series, six Fantasy in a series, three Paranormal in a series, one stand-alone Scifi, and one stand-alone Memoir. I have chosen to take ten of each of the first in the series’ and of the two stand-alone books. I will also take three full sets of the three series, one for display and two for sale.

I intend to tempt readers to buy a full set of the series by offering something additional. I know this will be a hard sell, but you never know who might be in the crowd. Someone who has read your first book and wants to meet you, or perhaps buy the next one in the series.

The ‘special offer’ is posted on the pricing signage. If they buy a full set of the Fantasy I have a coloring book and kid friendly tattoos that I will throw in. If they buy a full set of the Scifi I have six 11x17” space-scape posters based on the cover art for the books. And, if they buy a full set of the Paranormal I have six wolf prints based on the shape-shifting main character of that series. These prints will be displayed behind us in the tent hanging from the wall for all to see and be tempted by. 

So, now we are all set-up, balloons flying, posters hung, books arranged pleasingly to the eye, and Selfie prominently displayed. On to materials and working the crowd…

Materials and Working the Crowd

I have a theater background from one of my previous lives. At this point you might be asking what hasn’t she done? Well, not much. *grins*

I have a dragon puppet. I use it when I do readings. I am not a ventriloquist. The dragon is very shy and whispers in my ear. After all, he is a small dragon and used to trying to stay out of the way of the larger of his species. However, the kids love Spitfire and he loves kids. I created 2x2” stickers using art from my dragon, Farloft. Spitfire and I are going to traipse through the crowd giving out Farloft stickers and telling everyone there are dragons at Tent #21. 

Cheri’s granddaughter is coming with her. She is nine years old. I have created a flyer for her to hand out advertising the ‘Dragon Selfie.’ She will accompany me and if she wishes to talk about Farloft or her grandmother’s books, the readers can hear praise directly from a child who has read them. If she is shy like her grandmother, then she can just hold them out and hopefully the color will entice folks to take one and proceed to the tent to have a look at the bigger piece up close. 

If we run out of flyers or stickers, which I highly doubt, then I have created special business cards which picture either my first Scifi, Fantasy or Paranormal with my website, author’s email address on the front, and a small blurb about each genre on the back. Here is the front and back of The Star Traveler Series cards.

In addition to these handouts, I have designed bookmarks for each of our series’. I chose bookmarks instead of flyers because, as we all know, readers love bookmarks. Even if they don’t buy a book, that bookmark will float around their home for years. A flyer might just get thrown away in the bag. The bookmarks are colorful and have all the information a buyer would need to find the books online.

Cheri and I both have audio books. When Audible does one of these books they give the author 25 free coupons to distribute as you see fit in order to advertise the audio. We both have coupons left from our listings. We intend to set up a raffle jar for these audio books. This is a way to obtain email addresses to be added to your email list for informing readers of your latest release. Another something to get them into the tent and looking at your books.

And lastly, the bags. Every merchant uses their bags to advertise, right? Why not us? I couldn’t afford to have bags printed, so stickers are the second best thing. I have created three, one for each genre. Each says, ‘I Bought my Book at Tent #21’ and has eye-catching art on each. 

The Pitch

As Veronica, the event director stated, get the book into their hands. I am just going to consider the set on the table the cost of doing business. If someone breaks the spine or bends a cover, or even steals it, heck, that’s okay…maybe they will read it if they wanted it that bad.

But, getting the book into their hands gives them ownership. Then you need to have a pitch. Something short and catchy. You want them to buy and then run away, so you can sell to another. I hopefully have gotten past the question of which reading level the books are for by stating that on the pricing signage. So I can say the Fantasy has been reviewed as being “beautifully written with complex characters children to adults can appreciate.” I can add that they are “teaching but not preaching books that were originally written for my nine year old nephew.” I can state that my “Scifi is character-driven adventures reminiscent of Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein.” My “Paranormal that is unique in a genre that has gone stale. An adventure with romance and humor seen through the eyes of a wolf.” The “Memoirs are heartwarming, funny and soothing to the spirit.”

It will be a busy six hours in which I will sell out of all my books. *fingers crossed* Those that do not buy them at the festival will hopefully buy them online at a later date.

I wish you all well with any book fairs, signings, or readings you do, and hope this post is helpful to you in your planning stage.