Daily Archives: August 8, 2023

CONFERENCE PREP Part One

Happy August. It really feels like time is zipping by on a bullet train.

Let’s get down to it. In case I hadn’t mentioned it, I’m excite to be signing at the inaugural Steamy Lit Con later this month. This is my first mega signing and I was surprised at the amount of prep it required.

I had a lot of questions. At the top of the list,how many books to take? Followed by what kind of swag to take and how much?…What titles to take so I could set up a preorder?…Table decor…what to wear?…Can I bring an assistant?

It seemed like the list of questions was endless. Then I started noticing in the author group people were talking about exclusives. My mind was buzzing. I didn’t have an exclusive book or product.

I was growing overwhelmed with each post I read. I finally reached out to couple of veteran mega book signing authors for clarity because the answers I was getting were all over the place.

Check out some of the questions and answers.
How many books to take?
50 – 100 copies per title
200 per title
Don’t take every title, but take about 20 – 40 per of the ones you bring

What Swag to bring?
Postcards
Buttons
Bookmarks for sure
Pens, Stickers and bag clips
Magnets

Signage…
You definitely need a sign
I only do table top signs
I hate those retractable banners
I use a custom table cloth or drape

Forms of payment…do you charge tax?
PayPal
Cash
Venmo
CashApp
Square
Get a QR code
My website
Bring a lot of change
Yes, charge tax
Figure tax into the price

Do you discount your books?
Yes
No

I’m not exaggerating when I say it took me about a month to come up with a plan. Originally, based on some early information, I thought I was going to need A LOT of books. I was basing this on what I’d seen on various social media posts. If I’d stuck with that plan, I was going to order a few books every month so I wouldn’t have to do large orders. Well that never happened.

So here’s what I did.

Selected a show inventory.
I have a few titles and knew I didn’t want to bring everything. I knew I wanted to take my most popular series, The Good Girl and The Alex Chronicles. I also wanted to take my duet, A Southern Gentleman. I hadn’t intended to take my other series Generational Curse, but it’s going…I’ll explain why later. Plus I wanted to take my stand alone.

Let me explain. If this weren’t a local event and if it weren’t the first time I’d be meeting these readers, I’d have take fewer titles. My two main series have five books each. When you add in the duet and stand alones, it begins to look like a book store.

I did a preorder.
I did this because it would help with figuring out what to order. I was hoping for a lot of preorders. I received three…technically it was four. My mom/show assistant was generous to place a preorder. This was two more than the last time I did an event with a preorder. I understand the low number is because I’m a relative unknown…I’m working to change that.

Two of the preorders came from books I was on the fence about taking. I figured if I got preorders on them, I’d take them. That’s how I ended up taking the Generational Curse series and the anthology I was in earlier this year. For the record, I always intended to purchase a few copies of the anthology. I just hadn’t gotten around to doing so. The other reason I wasn’t too eager to bring Generational Curse, is because I’m going to do an update. But that changed.

How many books did I order?
I took the advice of the veteran authors and focused on the first book in the series. No matter how much I want people who have never read me to buy the entire series, I couldn’t order based on that. Instead, I ordered 20 of the first two books in each series and the first in the duet, five of everything else. This was a game changer. I write big books and if I’d gone with the other advice, it would have cost me a few thousand dollars.

I’ll stop here, otherwise this post will begin to resemble a novella. I hope this helps as you prepare for your next book signing.

Tracy