Flawless Event Planning - Part 1

Your event is coming up quickly! Are you prepared?

It’s exciting to take your book to an event where you’ll engage customers and hopefully sell them your book. You want to make sure that you have an exciting display and all of the tools necessary to do business.

What do you bring? This question has plagued authors all across the country for years. Here’s Lisa’s list from doing over 350 national, regional and local shows from budgets of $250 to $90,000.  What she learned is to be prepared for the strangest things to happen! The items you bring along, and a little advance planning can make or break your show. 

1. Know who is attending the show and how your product benefits them.
2. Know if your fellow exhibitors are your REAL audience 
3. Know how you are going to follow up on your leads BEFORE you even go to the show
4. Have your spiel memorized, practiced, honed and perfected. And don’t change it from person to person!
5. Keep your messages simple and to the point for the audience you are seeking. Don’t try to be all things to all people.
6. Know how long it takes you to present your book to a prospective customer. (Learn how to stop talking and let them ask a question)
7. Know your goals
8. Know your budget and stick to it
9. Know who is in charge of the show itself: their phone number and name (It doesn’t hurt to bring a pack of Thank You notes and a couple of little gifts just in case.)
10. Don’t get hung up on little annoying distractions – be prepared with a Tradeshow Kit* so you don’t have to waste time hunting down minutiae.

Part 2 - Tune in next week for the essentials in packing for your events!

How Much Traffic Makes a Good Booksigning Event?

I'm an advocate of planned, paid-attendance events with author appearances rather than bookstore booksignings. Put a short performance or presentation in the mix, even better -- but not necessary.  Stay open to unusual things happening, too. If the event is charging money and marketing to their audience effectively -- you'll be more likely to have a crowd to talk to. Think about your own behavior when it comes to a free event -- sometimes you make the last-minute decision to pass on it because you have no commitment there.

We did a targeted show with a more-than-perfect audience. The show organizer advertised effectively and repeatedly, and marketed well. We purchased a booth for $200, as did 15 other marketers that were selling goods and services that this audience budgets for each year. It was a beautiful day, a very convenient setting, and all-in-all, a great event planned. It was a free event for these attendees, and the attendees are actually volunteers for their organizations.

But then, it was a beautiful day. Only six people attended the event, in all.  Pretty pathetic, right? 

Not so fast. We made a single sale to a fellow exhibitor's company who will use the book as an ongoing promotional incentive. Did we plan for that? Yes, fortunately. Specifically that? No. But we have learned that the unexpected happens at these events. Not only did this single sale pay three times what the booth cost us, but the potential future lifetime potential of sales from that deal are many hundreds of times higher. One person, one sale, made our show worth it. The author also was asked to prepare a proposal for a paid keynote speech at the state annual convention. 

Being at the right event, with a relevant audience doesn't mean there has to be hundreds of people there.  Don't forget that the other exhibitors may be your customers too. Stay open, stay realistic and honest with yourself about your goods and services, and be prepared for anything to happen.