Behind the Scenes Author

Cultivating Future Readers

                As you can see, I’ve had a wonderful time starting my book tour. People have been so friendly and I swallowed one or two bad reviews on Kindle and Nook but I found that big fans of the book vehemently defended it. To my surprise, I actually met one of the girls at my last signing that gave me a bad review to which she admitted, very much to my surprise. When I asked her what she didn’t like about the book, her friend laughed and made her admit the book had not ended how she had expected or wanted it to. I let her know it was a trilogy and anything could happen, but still thanked her for her honesty. Even more to my surprise she bought a hard copy of the book.

 

                I made one mistake in booking  a signing one town on the day of a local Women’s Conference who would have been my primary demographic.  Still with all the dads with their kids in tow. I smiled and talked to many different people. I brought mints, had bookmarks with all pertinent information on it, and I made a deal with the in store café to have in store samples of some of their things (which was probably the biggest lure).  When things got slow I would make rounds about the store in the music and movie sections to and out treats and bookmarks, and explain what the book entailed.

                The store was very accommodating and there was a line of people when I first arrived that wanted an autograph and to meet me. I was booked for a three-hour signing and there were some lulls of shoppers. So I grabbed bookmarks and mints, talked to people, and let them know about my book.  Even if they were teenage boys who I knew were very unlikely to buy my book or little kids I still offered a mint. I also knew once the kids got over there the parents would soon follow.

                There were people who really wanted to buy my book but they were teens who just didn’t have the cash with them. Or I even met other people who just like me and you wanted to be a published author. So I pointed them in the direction of our blog and informed them that my book was also available on Kindle. I left fifteen books of extra stock at the store at the end of the day just in case.

                To be honest I did well in the number of books that I sold but nothing staggering. To my surprise,  the manager informed me I was their best-selling author all year. They said it was so nice to see an author interact with the public and to answer questions, and to be nice even if the people were not going to purchase a book. They said usually all their authors just sit at a table and read their own book, and wait for people to come to them.

                I called the store this morning and to my surprise, all of my extra books I left have sold and my sales on Kindle shot way up this week. So you never know how much it may make a difference to jut talk to people.

-Elsha Fornefeld