Selling Books at the Library

​Last Saturday I participated with 36 other others in an afternoon book festival.  The library is located on a main arterial road in West Allis and has a very large parking lot.  The festival was located in the entrance atrium and two conference rooms just off the atrium.
An author’s location was determined by when you sent in the table fee.  I was the first author to send in my fee so I had the primo location.  The primo location turned out to be just to the left of the interior entrance to the library.  My table was set next to the automatic door so that when the door opened it hit the edge of the table and trapped me behind the table.  I didn’t have anywhere else to go so that wasn’t a problem.  Sixteen of the thirty-seven authors were located in the atrium.  The table fee was used to provide door prizes and snack food for attendees.
The librarian organizer promised that their library had a reputation for a lot of patron traffic on Saturdays.  The theory was that people coming to a library are readers which should be perfect for authors selling books.  The theory, as it turns out, is flawed.  People visiting the library are readers but they borrow from the library, they don’t buy.  I had several people walk up to my table and boldly announce that they don’t buy books.  But they did want to engage in conversation with an author and fulfill their own social needs.  In side I was screaming to myself to move along, let people who will buy my books come up to the table.  I did have to use my best diplomatic skills to get folks to move along.  Several times I suggested they visit the room with fresh snacks.
The event was scheduled from 1:00-4:30 pm.  The library was open until 6:00 pm so it wasn’t clear to me why the event ended at 4:30 – my guess is that it had something to do with the librarian’s work hours.  At 4:00 pm they had a Question and Answer session with 10 authors selected at random.  The authors around my table all agreed that 4:00 would be the effective end of the event and we were right.
It was sad by the two authors on my left and the three authors on my right had a total of about three sales for the entire day.  As the romance author to my right said, she talked to a lot of readers.
I was fortunate; I sold enough books to pay for the table fee and my gas to drive to the event from my net proceeds.  So, financially the event was a success if my direct costs are covered.  My measure of success isn’t financial.  I am a legacy author not a wana be commercial author.  I did meet a number of interesting people.  One fellow told me he didn’t like the Irish because he said they believed in unicorns.  There have been a number of reasons the Irish are disliked but his was the most unique.  I tried to convince him that there are no unicorns in Irish mythology; I don’t think he believed me.  I suggested he try the snacks in the conference room.