Booth at a Craft / Trade Show

Depending on what your book topic is, you might do extremely well by bringing your book to a craft show or trade show on that topic. For example, one of my books is on Irish wedding and courtship traditions. I decided to get a booth at a local Irish festival, to offer it there.

I didn't have a tent, so I asked my friend who makes soaps to come along and bring her 10'x10' tent. I bought four 4' tables to lay our wares on. She brought the credit card processing machine. I got some tablecloths. These are all things you have to plan out!

It was $150 to have the space for the one day. Some craft shows are only $50 a day, so look into that beforehand. I looked into going to a wedding expo with my books - that was over $500 for a single day!! I'd have to sell a ton of books to earn that back.

As it was, I sold $9 worth of my handmade celtic bookmarks - but not one person bought one of my books :) My soap making friend sold $300 in soaps, so the day wasn't a total disaster. Still, even though I had an Irish themed book at an Irish themed event, people just weren't interested in buying books. Very few even looked at the book. Only one person picked it up to flip through it. So have other things to sell, if you give this a try. Consider it free publicity, and hand out a lot of cards!

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