Our established Phoenix-area ALWAYS authors met in Sept. 2022 to discuss how to make the most of book booth exposure. Here are valuable tips gleaned from the discussion, including additional marketing advice.

Proven tips for attracting readers to your booth

•           Pre-publicize your booth and why people should come by. When you let readers know before the festival, you increase your chance of traffic and sales, especially if you offer them something they can only receive by coming to the booth.

•           Stand beside or in front of the table instead of behind it, when possible.

•           Entice passersby to step up to you by commenting on their clothing, asking a question, or offering an interesting activity:

–          “What do you like to read?” (Then refer to authors in that genre near you, and ask them to do the same.)

–          IDEA: Our group is going to try handing out other author’s postcards (with booth number printed in a stick-on dot ) to readers looking for a specific genre.

•           Offer an interesting activity, even for adults: a progressive story to which they can add writing or art, non-messy food tasting, trivia questions, etc. 

•           Giveaways:

–          For kids: stickers or buttons for them to wear; candy; coloring pages

•           Sell other items, colored pencils, trinkets, swag (screen cleaner with your book cover imprinted on it, pop sockets, or other useful items)

Other brilliance

•           Support a charity by giving away your book for a donation, which will be directed to the charity. Or give part of your proceeds to a charity.

•           Supermarket table: Some indie authors are setting up tables in supermarkets

•           Connect readers with your book via online communities:

–          Sign up on the Book Movement site, where you give books away for reviews from book clubs

–          Get your book in front of 600,000 readers via The Fussy Librarian site

–          Post your writing at Booksie.com, providing tools for writers to publish their work and connect with readers from across the world.

•           Make purchasing your book easy: Have a info readily available for quick online, Paypal, Venmo, or Zellepayments. Have a Square, for credit card swiping. You can obtain one for free or inexpensively and will pay 3% or less in credit card fees to use one.

Wisdom

•           After you set a book up and have a few reviews that are good, only read your five-star reviews. You can’t please everyone, and you need not suffer from low reviews.

•           Don’t use bookmarks, which often are thrown away. Hand out postcards on demand only, or a Top 10 list, a recipe, food lists, trivia, or other book-content-related handouts.

•           Keep accurate sales numbers. They can help you get into bookstores and all major distributors.

•           Hire an actor to read your most emotional chapter and post the video online.

•           Purchase a $5 ad on Amazon or FB, and look at the search term used by those responding. If they searched for the title of the book, rather than general search terms, they likely saw your ad.

Recommended Arizona book expos, fairs, and other events

•           Desert Foothills Book Festival, second annual currently in planning phase.

–          Images Arizona interviewed several participating authors in 2022 and covered them in the magazine.

•           Payson Book Festival, in Payson, AZ, in planning for July 2023

•           Thumb Butte Book Fest, in Prescott, AZ (Nov. 4, 2022? I couldn’t verify online.)

………..

Write on!
Ann Narcisian Videan, Book Shepherd
Write • Edit • Publish

P.S. Learn more about my novels on my Amazon Author Central page.

Find me elsewhere online.