My Fifth Event and a Day of Firsts

Happy Monday, my friends! Or as happy as a Monday can be, hopefully. For me, it’s a fantastic one. Yesterday, I attended my fifth in-person author event of the year. In the way of these events, this one was different from all the others, which have been different from one another, but I’ll touch on that in a minute.

The first thing I want to say is a grand thanks to a few people. First, to Derrick for being the best teammate one could have. He runs heavy support at every event and I will absolutely say that I couldn’t do it alone. Also, to my kid for being the third member of the Black Feather Press team. He handles the adaptive nature of said events with far more patience than an eight-year-old has any business having. He won’t read this, but I do want to put it out there into the universe. Next, much love and thanks to Oliver Lyon, who has read, reviewed, and supported every single release I’ve had (except the latest and there are reasons for that I wouldn’t wish on anyone). He showed up at yesterday’s event and that means everything. It’s so very much appreciated. Last, I have so much gratitude for all of you who support me from afar. The likes and shares on the socials is endless and it means so much. Being indie can seem lonely. It’s a hard road, so when so many folks consistently show up like that it really becomes the breath that allows me to keep going. So thank you, now and always.

Right, then. Let’s talk about the Spooky Book Fair hosted by Spellbound Books in Sanford, held at the West End Trading Company. For a three-hour event held in a fairly small music venue, the crowd was fantastic. Also, being that it was a smaller venue, there were less authors vending, so I got to mingle. That’s hard to do at larger events where there are a lot of authors spread over large areas. I met some really cool folks and hopefully that’s the beginning of some beautiful relationships. The event itself was well-organized and the Spellbound staff was great.

As the title says, yesterday was a day of first for me. I have mentioned this in previous posts, but this was the first event I’ve done where I was actually invited to participate by the hosts. That would’ve been enough to make it an awesome experience for me, but the universe did not stop there. We weren’t even half an hour into the event when one awesome reader showed up at my table with a copy of The Murder Meets at Dusk already in hand, and asked me to sign it. What? Yes. That happened. To top it all off, toward the end of the three hours, I had another attendee recognize me from the Oviedo Page and Pen Festival. Considering how many authors were at that event, it’s kind of crazy that she remembered me from among them. That’s honestly probably because The Illustrated Author Design Services makes such stunning covers for me. Whatever the reason, I’ll take it and I’ll hold it close.

Now, as I said in the first paragraph, every event I’ve done so far has been different from the others. My first event was a book fest that got such a good response from vendors that they had to expand the area last minute to cover two locations instead of one. My second event was a comic con where I was the only author there, set in a mall where the majority of traffic wasn’t there for books. The third was just me at a bookstore, oddly the worst single sales event but not a bad experience at all (and probably what led to me being invited to the latest event). The fourth event was the Oviedo mall fest, where there was a lot of traffic, both regular mall goers and folks shopping for books, and–as mentioned–there were a lot of authors. The Spooky Book Fair was far more intimate. Next event is the fall edition of the comic con and I’ve noticed just today that they’ve added another author to that lineup. That’s three that I’m aware of and, like I said, I was the only non-comic author at the first one. Did I start something? I can’t say since I wasn’t a part of any of the previous ones but, if I did, well, I’ll take it. I think it’s awesome.

Having those experiences under my belt now is allowing me to better analyze what directions to go for next year. What do I like/dislike about the event types and locations? What kind of crowds have the best response? What time frames do I need to allow between such events? All of that will lead to a more streamlined list of appearances. I will say I think it was a smart move to keep everything fairly local. Could I get three-day booths at giant cons spread across the U.S.? Sure. I could. But once I started paying attention, I noticed there are a ton of smaller events all within the state of Florida. Why not stay within some boundaries and grow contacts that are not only nearby but also have potential for future growth. As a huge fan of the live music scene, I already knew smaller venues are better shows. That’s proving to be true for my own events. Small and local is the perfect place to start. Maybe someday I’ll have fans who will pay for those crazy massive cons to come buy my books but, for now, I’m still getting my name out there. I’ll take the small road.

What’s next? Like I said, I will be making my second appearance with the Merritt Square Mall Con crew. This time, I have all that experience to utilize to change up my table and sales approach, which I absolutely plan to do. I have three weeks before that one hits on November 8th. I’ll still be taking November and December off from events unless another magical invitation to one lands in my lap (hello, Universe?). I super stocked for the Page and Pen and the Spooky Book Fair, so I don’t even need to restock for the Mall Con.

That’s three weeks to hopefully finish my editing job and switch gears to Order of Crows book three. For now, I’m catching up on some stuff that lagged during event preparation. I gotta be honest, I’m still riding the glide from yesterday, too. I’m feeling reassured in my decision to go all in this year and I count all of it as a moderate measure of success. That’s all for now. I got a little long-winded with this one, but it has helped me sort out logical thoughts from the elation. So, see you next time!