My first event of the year was Jersey Pride. It was all around my most successful event yet, eclipsing my previous two combined. I sold out of a lot more of my books than I was expecting. In fact, the stock I had ordered this year was expected to last all three events. Oh, how foolish I was to think that. I've already ordered more books for this year, and will be making sure to have more stock than I could possibly need for next year.
The placement of my booth wasn't exactly ideal, at least for an introverted author trying to peddle her books. Across from me was a rather loud tent, in all manners of speaking. It sometimes made it difficult for me to interact with my potential customers, making talking and reading difficult, and me shift more into my shell than normal. However, thankfully, as the day progressed, our little corner of the park got quieter, and the readers just started pouring in.
I do have to credit at least a few of my customers to a friend who showed up. He not only bought a copy of each of my books, but spent a good portion of the event channeling customers my way. I didn't track how many of said customers actually bought books, but having people buy the books is only part of why we authors go to events. The other part is raising awareness of our books, and making contacts.
That last part happened quite a lot more than usual this time around. Not only did I quadruple my newsletter contacts list, but I also found someone who might be helping me out for making audiobooks. Audiobooks were one of those items in my "new to have" list, but I'll be looking to maybe, possibly move forward with that. It's something I'll be looking into this year, but I won't know anything for sure just yet. Anyway, more on that once things get settled, if they get settled.
As usual, I also learned quite a bit about doing such events in the future. For instance, I REALLY needed a cart. I ended up parking a block away from the event, but that was enough to make me quite exhausted by the time I had the car unloaded. So exhausted in fact that I didn't bother with figuring out the paid parking situation. I also missed not getting a ticket by a few minutes, but I don't think "leaving earlier" would be a lesson to learn from this. Anyway, I now have a cart, and will be playing around with that before the next event, to make sure I have placement of stuffs inside optimized for reduction of trips and potential damage of items within.
Anyway, I'll be recharging my social stats for a while. My next event is IABX, which is scheduled for August 6th. Judging by how last year worked out, I probably won't know my position at the event until the day of. Once I know, or once I'm set up, I'll post on Twitter and Facebook as usual (maybe Insta as well; I'm trying to do that more). I hope to see y'all out there.
