| This weekend, December 3 & 4, was the book launch of my mystery, Broken Earth, the fifth book in the Deputy Allred & Apache Officer Victor Series. On Friday I traveled to the Bullion Plaza Museum in Miami, Arizona. Where I did a fifteen minute presentation on Broken Earth and the other books in my series. I love this fine Museum in my hometown. Under the leadership of Executive Director Tom Foster It has grown to having world-class exhibits on Miami, its history, people, arts and culture, and mining and minerals. Tom is also active in many local and state history and cultural organizations, and this year was the recipient of the Arizona Historical Society Al Merito Award, the highest honor given by the Society. He is ably assisted by Researcher and Top-Hand Lee Ann Powers and a staff of excellent volunteers and docents. It was a little scary at first because my wife and I, and museum personnel were the only ones there as start-time neared. A few trickled in, so I began the prepared presentation, and by the time I finished my talk, there were probably about thirty people present. We were surprised our son Keith and his wife Charlotte drove down from Safford. Then the book signing began. I didn’t get a count of books sold, but ten or twelve of Broken Earth and some of each of my other books. One man purchased all five books. During the signing many of the people left as their books were signed, while others arrived, and quite of few attendees took the opportunity to visit the museum exhibits, and gift shop. I’m pleased that the museum did well by hosting the event, I guess they sold about twenty of my books, had some donations in the kitty, and from the gift shop some books by other authors, as well as other items (such as decor items my wife bought). Saturday was the Author Fair at the Mesa Red Mountain Library, I’ve gone to this event nearly every year since they started in 2012. There is a big difference between a single author event compared to an event like this with between 50 and 100 authors. Instead of everyone being specifically there to learn about and buy your book, they are all there “window shopping” the hundreds of books on display. That means instead of selling a dozen or more books, you are lucky if you sell six. Like real estate sales, location is very important. Your success is helped or hurt by your location within the venue. I don’t want to be at the entryway tables, because people want to get a feel for the number of authors and genres being offered. Neither do I want to be off in the wings somewhere, because by the time they get back that far, if they ever do, they will have spent their budgeted amount. So I aim to get a table in the central lobby, where people tend to linger longer, and must pass your table multiple times to get to the surrounding tables or the other locations in the library. No such luck this time. I arrived two hours early to scout out the arrangement and claim my territory, but a whole bunch of people arrived two and one-half hours early. So I ended up in the hinterlands of the magazine section, with fifteen other authors. However, I knew I would have some sales, because some of my readers had told me they were coming to get my book. Sure enough, if we had more than twenty people visit our section in the four hours of the fair, I would be surprised. I did sell books to three people who had never heard of me before, which is a big plus, new readers represent growth. My childhood friend Everett York came for a book and we had a nice fifteen minute visit, because there was no one to interrupt! He ended up with two of my books. Another friend I knew in Globe visited with her new husband, and again we had plenty of time so had a pleasant visit. They bought all five of my books. Another lady, originally from Miami but living in Mesa now, came to buy my book at the behest of her dad who was unable to get to the signing at the museum. I also exchanged books with two other authors, which may or may not win me new followers. Finally, I was able to hand out my bookmarks to probably a dozen people who had never heard of me, so also a possible source of new readers. So not too bad; a dozen books sold and some possible new readers, makes for a good day, and with the museum sales a good book launch weekend. To cap it off Lois and I ate with Keith and Charlotte at an old favorite Mexican restaurant, El Rey in Miami. Out of all these good things, the thing I enjoyed most was having Lois feeling well enough to travel with me, to get to meet my museum and literary friends, visit with other lifelong friends, and spend time with our kids. These are things about being an author that are really enjoyable. Of course at our age It comes with a price; we are worn out and sore, and in a day of recovery now, so it comes with a price. |
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In my business career I did a lot of process improvement work in which we produced detailed process flow charts, then tried to optimize that process. There would sometimes be part of the process that is completely out of our control; we called these “black boxes.” Once our work is in a black box all we can do is wait for it to pop out the other side. Publishing a book has several black boxes. We drop our “baby” into the box and we wait. We know it will be better when it pops out the other side. But we don’t know exactly when or how much additional work we will have. When our work goes to a proofreader, editor, or publisher we usually don’t know how long it may take. This is because they are usually handling several projects at a time so our work goes into a chronological queue behind other manuscripts, and once they are working on ours we want them to do a thorough job. So does everybody ahead of us. So we don’t resent those black boxes. But the most painful and unpredictable black box is the market. We can influence it by publicity, by making appearances, signing books, doing interviews, but it is hard to build a large readership. Every author hopes “this book will be my breakout book,” when enough demand builds that sales rapidly increase, and it catches the attention of the public. With the advent of self-publishing, nearly 1 million new books are published in the US each year, but only about 200 of them will make a best seller list. So such “breakouts” are very rare. So if you really enjoy a book written by a relatively unknown author, such as (this guy, right here), posting good reviews, spreading the word to friends and family, and sharing their posts on social media will help. Word of mouth is still one of the best methods of advertising, people trust the opinions of their friends and family more than those of strangers.
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AuthorMystery writer, Southwestern Historian, researcher, husband, father, grandpa, with an opinion on everything. Archives
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