More Book Festival

I mentioned in my last blog that I was going to take part in the Women's Expo in Dayton, Ohio. An energetic group of women who will put on the Dayton Book Expo in May of 2014 arranged for a booth to introduce authors and to promote the May Expo. I enjoyed meeting another group of authors, and it was fun to announce to passersby that all the authors of the books being sold were there to sign the books and talk about them! I probably won't get to the May event, because it falls between a trip to Arizona for the Tucson Book Festival and another trip to Seattle to promote my books there.

This was a two day show. Since Dayton is almost seven hours from my home, that meant three nights in a motel in addition to the booth cost. No way was I going to break even financially, but I knew that going in. What did happen is that I sold 15 books -- not gangbusters but something in a new market for me. More important, I ran out of bookmarks and other cards I had taken to publicize my books. I have never encountered at any event so many people who got excited when they learned I was published on Kindle! Now, I've only seen a possible three Kindle sales as a result so far, but those bookmarks are sturdy -- they'll be around for a while.

So, so far my experiment with book festivals is a qualified success. I do as well with arts and crafts fairs, but the festivals reach out to a different market, which I hope will eventually grow my fan base.