I’m no expert, but I did self-publish my first book this past fall and am willing to try out different marketing experiences. I’m happy to share the outcomes in the interest of helping other independent creators succeed as well.
This past weekend, I went to a First Monday Trade Day as an experiment. Since publication in September 2020, I’ve mainly relied on social media marketing for my book It’s the Depression for Me: 3 Ways to Make Being a Teen Suck Less. While that has been relatively successful, I’m always looking for ways to improve and become more involved in the local community. Not to mention, it can be easy to get lost in the numbers and lose sight of the real people your book is impacting.
Going to a market was just the experience I was looking for and I learned so much in just three days! In this blog post, I’ll share everything I learned. This is perfect for anyone who is thinking about becoming an author or who has already published and is looking for ways to get the word out about their book.
First things first, before you consider doing any marketing, in-person or virtual, you need to know your audience. Know who your book was written for and who it will appeal to. Understand your prospective reader’s pains, obstacles, and desired solutions. You can talk about how good your book is all day long, but if you don’t connect it to what your reader is looking for, you’ll have very little success. In my opinion, market research is way more important than booth setup, so that’s what most of my insights are on. Though there definitely is an art to booth setup, I’m not well versed in that quite yet. I tried out a few different setups with my limited time and budget.
Day 1 vs Day 2