Local Author Expos Great For Marketing

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Finding and participating in Local Author Expos in your area is a great inexpensive way to promote yourself and your books that you have published. Of course, when you are going somewhere in person and promoting your books you are going to need to bring some copies to sell (at least a dozen or so) maybe one or two to give away as a door prize that the organizer might be having. You will need your business card with your name and website, social media information on it to give away to everyone who walks by and a few inexpensive items for people to pick up and take with them like a bookmark, some candy or even pens/pencils with your name or book title on them. Something that they may keep to remind them later to buy a copy of your book.

You really should prepare a little 5 to 10-minute talk about you, your books and pick out a chapter to read a few paragraphs from. This further helps to bring you and your writing into the foreground of people’s minds. I know a lot of us writers are solitary creatures and do not like to get in front of crowds to talk. I still have problems to this day but if you really want to sell your books you have to practice in front of the mirror what you are going to say and say it a few dozen times to help relieve some of the stress of public speaking.

Of course, you will want to post to your website and social media pages that you will be attending the event, where, when, etc and take some pictures while you are there. With today’s smartphones, the pictures they take are great and you can upload them right away to your social media accounts. Those will be another source of promotion in the future depending on how well they turn out.

Most of these events are planned months in advance and when you find out about them commit yourself to going and start promoting the event everywhere. If you get approved early enough, whatever marketing the event coordinator will be doing might just include your information on it as well. Hey, FREE MARKETING! That way you will also have time to order copies of your books, promotional posters, give-away items, etc. You don’t want to wait until the last minute and not have anything but yourself, a few books and your business cards.

It would help if you get on your local libraries’ mailing list, a couple of bookstore’s mailing lists and a few writer’s groups email listings. These are the types of organizations that sponsor local author events and would be willing to let you know far enough in advance for you to sign-up and promote the heck out of them. Of course, unless you have the budget for it, you can’t attend every single one that you find out about. You are the only one who knows how far you would be willing to travel and how often you can go, so, plan and budget accordingly. Remember a lot of these events are only for a few hours but there are a few that last all day.

Coming Soon to North Florida Area

Amelia Island Book Festival 2018
Feb 15, 16 and 17
Applications by October of Previous Year and $70 application and registration fee
https://www.ameliaislandbookfestival.org/2018-exhibiting-authors-at-author-expo

Jacksonville Book Fest 2018
March 3rd 10 am to 3 pm Main Library
Applications by November of Previous Year and $50 Fee
https://jaxbookfest.org/authors-2/

You might want to check on the local Chamber of Commerce website and even the local Florida State Parks Events pages to see if and when they might be having a local author expo and add them to your calendar as well.

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Author: Jolene MacFadden

Single mother, retired from a normal job, was traveling around the State of Florida in an old RV. Now stationary writing new books and helping others get their self-published.

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