Listen to the Podcast

On September 27th, Kasie and Rex were back in the studio live and took on preparing for a book-selling event. Here are the show notes:

Topic:

The Prep and Practice of Selling at Events

Agenda:

• Quick Catch up
• All the tasks associated with an event

Finding the right event, getting the vendor license, and packing all your stuff to go over there and sell is all part of the prep. The South Carolina Artisan license can be found at the SC Department of Revenue (link).

Some expected costs: Table ($50-200), vendor license (maybe), travel — if you have an LLC, you can consider all of these business expenses.

Some preparation consideration: Table aesthetics – what will get people’s attention? How can you display your logos and branding? What props will you use to lure people? Rex has foam boards of the book covers, Kasie has QR code displays. Rex has a foam baby eating a rat, it was a Halloween store buy. What giveaways will you have? We’ve used candy and we’ve used stickers. Match the stickers to the event. Book display stands are available at Amazon and the foam board displays will have theirs in the purchase price.

Some of the vendors we mentioned for giveaways: DiscountMugs.com, VistaPrint, 24HourWristBands.com

Tote bags – people walk around with the bags and advertise for you. This is a good onsite investment.

Book pricing can and should be related to the people at the event. Consider charging what you think the people will pay. All the authors charging the same thing may not sell anything. But when Rex charges what he thinks the people will pay, he undercuts the other authors. Volume is what matters here, he says, so the more books you can put out in the world the better.

How to present yourself at the table: look professional, a jacket and a nice shirt, something relevant for the event, put out a select number of books so that people can peruse them individually. Engage with people, talk to them, don’t be nervous. Know something about the subject.

“Come over here,” Rex says. “Check this out.” People are starved for engagement and to be recognized and showing interest in them will pay off.

Don’t try to sell them everything. Ask them about their reading habits, what kind of stuff do they like? Get a conversation going and then sell the one book that meets their preferences. Try not to overwhelm them with all the knowledge about every book.

Daniel Pink “To Sell is Human” will provide you some practice-able steps.