Visiting the Madera Library and Tips About Selling Books

This past weekend, I appeared at the Madera Library along with other local authors. Of course I'm not all that local to Madera--but it's worth it to drive that far to meet new people and talk about my books and sell a few.

I was foruntate in that I did quite well at the event--both with meeting new people and selling books.

My daughter drove me there and went around and talked to the other authors. She made a couple of observations about what the other authors did and didn't do.

She said some of them didn't stay at their posts. They wandered around, mostly talking to other authors and missed opportunities to speak with potential readers.

The other observation she made that is an important one is that there were some people that she wouldn't buy their books because she already knew everything that was in them--so why bother. In other words these particular authors told her in detail the complete plot of their books, including the ending.

I've seen and heard this from authors at other events where the author had a few minutes to give a talk about his/her books--and all the major plot points were revealed. Not smart. Once the reader has heard it all--there is no need to buy the book. Every author should have a short "elevator pitch", one or two sentences about the book or books, that will be enticing enough that the reader can't wait to purchase it and find out what happens.

Hope this will be helpful to other authors who will be appearing at author events.

Marilyn aka F. M. Meredith