Until you’ve stood behind a table at a book fair for eight hours, and been judged by the public, you’re still wearing the publishing equivalent of a pull-up. Yes, writing and publishing a book is hard and just doing it is an accomplishment. But, it’s easy to hide behind your book’s page on Amazon, your website or your blog. You can always just ignore bad reviews, negative comments, etc.
Got guts? Pay for a table at a book fair.
Arrange your books all pretty-like, display some bookmarks, drape a sign in front of the table, put out a bowl of candy, then get ready to take it like a man (or woman, but honestly “man” just sounded better for this one). Some people will stop by your table and chit-chat with you until they’ve eaten a few pieces of candy and it’s polite to move along. Some will actually pick up your book and inspect it, then put it back down and try to sneak away without hurting your feelings. Others will walk by and just silently judge you. If it’s your first book fair, you’ll feel rejected. It’s like high school. But, instead of being judged on how you look, what you weigh, or how you dress, you’re judged on something that is perhaps even more personal — what you wrote. All of your inner thoughts, ideas, plots, sentences and words just blown off by someone in acid-washed jeans and a “Limbaugh University” sweatshirt.
But, like in any good teen movie, just when you’ve hit your low point, someone will appear out of nowhere and make you feel popular and validated. How? By buying your book and thinking enough of you to hand you $15. You will feel amazing when that happens. Inside you’ll be shouting, “Someone I’ve never met and will never see again just bought my book!!”
When you have a few book fairs under your belt, you’ll learn not to take the rejection personally. You’ll understand and accept that the masterpiece you’re hawking is just another book to people shuffling through the self-created aisles of a book fair. It will resonate with some people and not with others.
Next time there’s a book fair in your area, get a table, dress it up, and put your big boy (or girl) pants on. It’s the best and worst feeling at the same time. But, how else will you learn that publishing is a business? Or, that the public is fickle and that they don’t care how much time and money we put into putting our books (and our hearts) on that table that they just walked by and judged like it was cattle at a State Fair.
I promise that you’ll learn more about book selling than you could ever learn from any seminar, authors group or website.
