Booksigning/Convention Tips – James Shipman @jshipman

Booksigning/Convention Tips

Booksigning at an author convention/comicon, etc. can be a tough assignment for an unknown author. I’ve attended five or six conventions in the past two years. I have a little bit of an audience at this point so I have the periodic fan that just wants to run up and have their book signed or buy a book to sign. That is a gratifying, ego boosting event. However most of the time the sales are hard work.

The first thing I would suggest is having quality presentation materials. You don’t have to go overboard but at a minimum have a good sized poster board printed of your cover and display that on an easel behind your chair. Also have a small easel to display a book (or books) on the table itself. I also would suggest having quality business cards prepared that not only list your book but reference all of your various social media and an email address.

When you are sitting at the table you are going to have to cold sell to customers who know absolutely nothing about you. I recommend you practice a fifteen second blurb about your book. Ask people if they are interested in your genre first, and if there is a well known writer that you feel would have a similar audience, you may want to ask them if they like “so and so.” Then hit them with your pitch of the book. Also hand them a book to look through. Once it’s in their hands you have a better chance that they will actually buy the book. I also like to include any statistic you have about your book. If you’ve hit the top 100 on Amazon even for thirty seconds for your genre, tell them about that. You can often get your book into the top 100 on Amazon for free books if you’ve run a promotion, even if that is all you have to hold on to, tell them about it. People react very well to the concept that your book is a bestseller or has sold well. If they decide not to buy tell them about your less expensive kindle version and give them a card.

Every single sale is a victory. If you are a new writer, when you make a sale, you are getting to sign a book and give it to a reader. That is an amazing thing. I’ve sold a few hundred books at a convention and also 25, the total number doesn’t matter. Get out there and enjoy yourself.