Author Fest at the Visalia Library

Last Friday night, the Visalia branch of the Tulare County Library hosted 10 authors for an author fest. I was privileged to be invited.

We'd been given, via attachment, a poster to use for publicity. They also made individual posters for us that we could print out and use. I know they had newspaper publicity as well. They are really trying to get people to start reading again.

The Friends of the Library were there to help and they provided yummy refreshments.

Our instructions were to arrive by 6:15. My daughter-in-law came with me to help with the selling of the books. It's difficult to talk to prospective buyers and do the change making too. They library was just getting the tables moved around, but at each place was an easel with a huge poster with information about the author and his or her books and it was decorated appropriately. (They let us take these posters home and I'll use it again by changing some of the information.)

The other authors arrived at about the same time. I was only mystery writer, there were several people with local history books, two children's book authors, a romance writer, and a true crime.

Before 7, the starting time, people began drifting in. Most spent quite a while at each table, asking questions and flipping through books. A few were intent on buying. In both the romance writer's and my case, some folks came intent on finding us in order to purchase a book.

I was pleased to see friends I haven't seen for awhile and some folks that I'd met at other events who were interested in seeing what I'd written lately.

It wasn't a huge crowd, but I did quite well. At the end of our time there, I gave a copy of each book I'd brought to the library. As far as I could tell, I was the only one who did that.

Now I can rest for a couple of weeks, my next event isn't until May 8th when I'll be at the Jane Austen Festival being held at the St. Paul Newman Center in Fresno. I'm not sure why a mystery writer should be there, but the ones in charge were insistent that as a local writer they wanted me.

Marilyn
http://fictionforyou.com