This week, steampunk author Dana Fraedrich joined me on Zoom to talk about attending book fairs as an author. Last year alone, Dana has attended around 20 book fairs and events, which makes her a bit of an expert.
Guest-starring Bruin, Dana’s dog.
You can also:
- Read her Live Show Guide
- Read her tips on saving during live shows and traveling
- Read her post on Vendoring at BookCon
Listen to the Episode
Read the Transcript
Sarina Langer 00:08
Hello, and welcome to the Writing Sparrow podcast. I’m Sarina Langer, and this podcast is all about writing, publishing and marketing your book. You can find transcripts on my website at sarinalanger.com. Let’s get started!
Sarina Langer 00:26
Welcome back friends and Sparrows and hello! This is episode number 11, and this is the 16th of November 2020, and I have the wonderful Dana Fraedrich with me, who I’ve been very lucky to meet last year in Winchester before the world went to shit.
Dana Fraedrich 00:47
Thank you very much. I super appreciate you having me here.
Sarina Langer 00:51
Yeah, and I’m really appreciative that we’ve managed to meet up before everything turned a little bit weird.
Dana Fraedrich 01:01
But you know what, one day we’ll be able to meet back up again. So you know, one day we’ll travel again.
Sarina Langer 01:07
It’ll be amazing. What I would like to talk to you about is things like book fairs, because before COVID I swear you were doing a different kind of book fair every weekend. It felt like it to us anyway. Every now and again, when Bev and I met up in Winchester, we were saying, did you see she’s doing another book fair? How does she have the energy? It’s incredible. How many have you done?
Dana Fraedrich 01:33
Oh my goodness. Um, it’s a lot. Um, so I don’t even know how many I’ve done in total, but I do know that I was probably doing somewhere around like 20 or so a year.
Sarina Langer 01:51
That sounds about right.
Dana Fraedrich 01:52
Yeah, it was, it was a lot. Um, so yeah, like, and like, like, we were just saying, like, we will, we will travel again one day, book fairs and cons and things like that will be, will be a thing again, one day, once it’s safe, and all that kind of stuff. So this is going to be good. But yeah, I will say they are very labour intensive as far as… physically, emotionally, mentally. I personally really love it. But I’m very much a people person. I really like love talking to people. And I really enjoy being physical and getting out there and all that kind of stuff. So I always caution people if they’re thinking about doing anything like this to really consider like how much like mental and physical bandwidth they have, and emotional as well.
Dana Fraedrich 02:44
As far as like… okay, you’re in there, you are probably going to be working for like 10 to 12 hours a day from like set-up to tear-down and then all the talking in between. So I, yeah, like I said, I definitely recommend people really think about this before they try to jump in. But if you, if you are that kind of personality, it’s great.
Sarina Langer 03:04
Yeah, well, I am more of an introvert, and I found it very stressful. But I didn’t, I’ve only done the one. I have nothing like your very extensive experience. And it was a slightly strange experience for me because, well, it… The way it was advertised was that it was a family friendly thing with all kinds of genres welcome. So I thought great, I’ll do my first one, it’s kind of just down the road for me in Brighton. I’ll go do that. And my, my parents were there, they had flown in for it, and my partner came with me, and we all drove down there together. And they were able to have a look around the entire hall long before I did because I was just setting up and just trying to people in an adult way. And they came back around to my table after having a look around and my partner looks at me and just goes, did you know it’s all porn?
Sarina Langer 04:01
And I said, no, I was, no, I, no, this is interesting, no one told me that.
Dana Fraedrich 04:07
Yeah, erotica is a very popular genre. And a lot of like romance writers and erotica writers and things like that, these sort of events are really great places for them. And there’s a lot of really great networking and stuff. And a lot of them are family friendly. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the books are family friendly. And that’s always something to think about and, like, kind of look into when you are preparing is look at the other authors attending, usually on the websites that are promoting this event, they’ll have a list of attending authors. And then you can go to their website and see kind of the, the various genres that are around, and this is something I learned the hard way.
Dana Fraedrich 04:48
Not all events are going to work for your book. So for those out there who don’t know, I write steampunk, and while there is usually like a romantic thread in the background, they’re not romance per se. And I’ve done some cons that were like, pretty firmly romance genre, and I didn’t do very well there. So that’s always a good thing, to do that research beforehand.
Sarina Langer 05:13
Yeah, no, I agree. That’s something I didn’t do. I was just really lucky that I got in, I think. One of our mutual friends, Grace, she said she was going to go originally, and then she had to cancel it. So she said to me, would you like my spot? So I was like, Yes, Yes, please.
Dana Fraedrich 05:30
That’s so cool!
Sarina Langer 05:31
I’m gonna have so much fun. I’m gonna be doing this. It’s gonna be great. And, um, I didn’t really look into it beyond that, because I figured if she would have done it, our books aren’t that different. I mean, she wrote more, you know, urban fantasy, so you know mine is more epic fantasy, but it’s still fantasy. So I figured it’d be fine. But I could definitely tell on the day that most of the readers who were there, they, they were there for the erotica. I think I, I had a few readers who came up to the table and just said, Does your book have any sex in it? And I said, No, not really. And they said, okay bye, I’m gonna, I’m gonna go over to the corsets and the penis-shaped biscuits.
Dana Fraedrich 06:15
Yeah, and that is, that is always um… That can be really disappointing. One thing I found, or rather something else I always tell people, is like, be prepared for disappointment, because there are going to be people who are not interested in your books for any number of reasons. Or if they are interested in hearing about them, then they hear the pitch and they’re like, no, I’m good. thanks anyway, bye. And that, that sucks. Like, that’s really disappointing. So it’s like I said, it’s very mentally and emotionally draining, especially when you have something like that going on. But honestly, it’s just, it’s kind of part of it. That’s just going to be your experience sometimes. And then there’s going to be events that are fantastic. I really always recommend, like, trying to find your niche. Sometimes that requires going to the event, especially if it’s like far away, but if you, if it’s like a local event, you can always kind of go one year beforehand and kind of check it out. That’s what I did with our local book festival. It’s called the Southern Festival of Books here in Nashville. And like, I went with a friend of mine, it’s actually my best friend, Sally, who you know,
Sarina Langer 07:26
Yeah, I’ve met her, she’s lovely. Hi, Sally.
Dana Fraedrich 07:31
You know what I’m going to, I’m going to make sure to send this to her. But she happened to be over during that, that week. So she and I went to the Southern Festival of Books together, had a wander, kind of got to like, see everything. And that was really, really helpful, because then I knew what to expect. And that was one of the bigger ones I do. It’s like, three days long, you have like, your own tent and whatnot, it was really cool, but it’s also outside, which has its own challenges. And, you know, it’s rained every year that I’ve done it, so you kind of have to be prepared for weather.
Sarina Langer 08:04
Lots of mud!
Dana Fraedrich 08:06
Yeah. So… and honestly, I live and die by my checklist. Um, you and I are both very similar really personality in that, like, we like our lists, we like our, all of our planning and stuff
Sarina Langer 08:18
And it needs to be colour-coded, thank you.
Dana Fraedrich 08:21
There you go. Exactly. I have, I have rainbow colours in my planner. It’s not, it’s not quite as pretty as your washi tape, but still.
Sarina Langer 08:30
What I found really surprising when I went to my one book fair, which in hindsight I really should have researched more – hindsight is a beautiful thing – is that so many of the readers… it’s almost like they kind of go on tour with them. So they kind of start at the top of the country, and then they go to all of the book fairs until they’ve made their way down. So they obviously, they have a certain budget, and they only have so much space in their cars and in the suitcases. So you need to consider that people don’t necessarily not buy your book because they’re not interested, it’s just that they do not have any more room. But I think a lot of them end up taking a note of authors. And also, you might end up creating a lot of merch for it like bookmarks, for example, or totebags or maps, and you might think that maybe you can make a tiny bit of money that way. People are just gonna take them off your table. These are not things that you’re going to be selling, they just expect them to be freebies.
Dana Fraedrich 09:28
Yeah. And any kind of like, uh, like swag like that, that you have, if you are going to give it away for free, I would always recommend things like bookmarks, paper products, stuff like that, because it, it can get very expensive very quickly to be like having all this cool swag and then giving it away for free. But one thing you can do with that is you can basically use them as like marketing. So you can have like, you can print a QR code for free from Google, and I actually print them on like little paper labels, and I stick them on my bookmarks for whatever it is I’m trying to promote at that time. So like, for instance, you mentioned the issue with people having space in their suitcases and stuff, and I know you’ve got an audiobook, you’ve got all your books in e-format and stuff, same here. So like, you can direct people with that QR code to either your Amazon site or a different place. So then I’ll be like, oh, it’s available in ebook, and it’s available in audio, and then you know, that’s not space that they have to take up in their suitcases or else.
Sarina Langer 10:31
That is so clever. I had never even considered that. This is why you’re clearly the professional and I am the very, very green newbie. The weird thing is, I remember when I was there, there was, there were two guys sitting opposite us. There was so many people in Brighton who’d come over from America.
Dana Fraedrich 10:49
Oh, wow.
Sarina Langer 10:49
Authors who must have, well, who clearly carried all of their books across the world, hoping to get rid of them in Brighton, so that, that was so amazing to me, because I was just glad that I could go somewhere so close to me. And they had literally travelled across the world just to be there. And I made, I was complaining because Manchester is too far away from my home, but one of them said to me, oh, I can’t believe this is your first one, you look like you really know what you’re doing. But actually, you know what? I think it must have been obvious that I had no idea. She was being nice to me.
Dana Fraedrich 11:28
I bet that you, you know, because we were talking earlier about this whole like professional voice thing. You know, the kind of like fake it till you make it. So even if you don’t know what you’re doing, like, if you kind of give that presence of like, yeah, no, I’m good, I know what I’m doing, it’s cool.
Sarina Langer 11:43
Yeah, just pretend. They don’t know.
Dana Fraedrich 11:45
Exactly, yeah, no, this is just your normal style, it’s cool.
Sarina Langer 11:49
We’re always this calm and confident. We totally know what we’re doing. I have a podcast now, don’t I? I must know what I’m doing.
Dana Fraedrich 11:57
Only professional people have podcasts!
Sarina Langer 11:59
Well, absolutely.
Dana Fraedrich 12:03
Um, but yeah, and then one thing I do want to make sure to mention, so you don’t forget is I have, as you know, a blog with helpful tips and things like that. And on there, I have a couple of different blog entries about doing shows, and I have a lot of information packed into those. So this, if this is something that people are interested in, I recommend going and looking those up. You can just go to my website, which is wordsbydana.com, and type in like live shows or anything like that. And those blog entries will come up from the search bar. And like I said, those are, those are really helpful. I packed a lot of information in about, like, display, because you want your space to look inviting. I talked about sales, I talked about marketing, I talked about… I’m trying to think what else… kind of like dealing with things like weather and networking and all that kind of stuff.
Sarina Langer 12:58
Well, I know from personal experience that your blog is incredibly helpful, I got so much out of it when I was first looking into how to do an audiobook. So I can only second that. And we will definitely be linking to your site in the shownotes as well, so you don’t have to go hunt it down. You can just click on a link and there it is. It’ll be nice and easy.
Dana Fraedrich 13:17
Yeah, that’s awesome. Thank you. And yeah, and shows are also a really great way to meet other authors. Author communities are, as you know, I know you know, so important and so encouraging to have because sometimes, you know, you get those feelings of like, I am the only one feeling this, I am the only one going through this. And it is in a way yay that it’s not true, but also in a way boo, it’s not true, because I hate that more of us are going through these sort of things.
Sarina Langer 13:45
We’ve picked a difficult industry, haven’t we? But also, let’s be honest, we wouldn’t have it any other way.
Dana Fraedrich 13:52
Exactly. Yeah. We can’t help living the author life. It’s true.
Sarina Langer 13:56
It’s chosen us. Yeah.
Dana Fraedrich 13:58
Yeah. But honestly, I’ve met some of some really great author friends through these events and stuff like that. My, my, honestly my biggest tip is just like to be friendly and be nice. You’re not going to get along with everyone at author events. I’ve also had a couple of situations where I was like, please get out of my space right now. But of course you can’t say that. So yeah, always be nice. Always be friendly. And you can meet some really cool people doing that.
Sarina Langer 14:25
I feel like that’s very good life advice in general. So one thing that, one thing I wasn’t really sure about when I was preparing for my first and so far only event was, how many books should I take with me? Because I had no idea like, is this, is 10 books a lot or is that way too many? What should I expect? How many books should a new author take with them to an event like that?
Dana Fraedrich 14:50
That is such a good question. And firstly, of course, this is totally dependent on your budget. Some people might only be able to afford to bring, you know, 10 or 15 or 20 books. It gets expensive fast, it gets really heavy fast, because books are very heavy. But I will say like no matter what your budget is, always bring probably twice as many of the first in your series if you do have a series, then the second and the third. I always sell way more copies of Out of the Shadows than any other, who starts the first in the series.
Sarina Langer 15:29
That’s very good advice, thank you. I just had another question I don’t know… ah no, I know. So you’ve probably done both of those things by now given your very extensive experience, but normally… Oh, hello! Sorry, I’ve just spotted a dog in the background. Hello. Oh, he’s adorable.
Dana Fraedrich 15:49
Bruin was hanging out with us. Hey baby!
Sarina Langer 15:51
I’m a bit disappointed because I promised that my cat would probably say hello sooner or later and so far I haven’t heard a single meow from her while I was recording, but I’ve seen your dog now. She’s extremely shy. Anyway, back to the question, back to, back to the point we’re here. So quite often, when you book one of these events, you get the choice between either booking half a table and sharing it with another author, or booking a whole table. I’m sure you’ve probably done both of those options by now, so what would you say are your pros and cons for both, and which one would you recommend if you have a favourite?
Dana Fraedrich 16:27
Well, again, a lot of this is going to be very budget dependent. Of course, budget is a huge part of book shows and travel and all that kind of stuff. So I personally like having a whole table, but I have a lot of stuff. Not only do I sell books, but I sell crocheted kind of things, dice bags, things like that. I sell– I’ve made handmade candles and I sell those. So I need a lot of space generally. But if you are doing a half table, that’s also really cool, and that can work really well in conjunction. So basically, if you’re going to do a half table, doing it with someone you know and have good communication with is always really helpful. For instance, I table-shared with an author by the name of Jeffrey Mandragora a couple years ago, and he also writes steampunk. But I always want to caution people that like, firstly, other authors are not your competition. And having that kind of vibe is really toxic. If authors are competing against each other, it gets ugly really fast, which is why I mentioned communication being key. But Jeffrey is really great. So like I said, he also writes steampunk, but he writes more like espionage and thriller kind of stuff. And my stuff is more, it’s young adult, and it’s a little bit more mystery, it’s a little bit more whimsical. And so what we would do is when someone would come over to our table, we would ask them, you know, what do you like to read? And if they were like, a financial thriller, I would be like, Jeffrey here has stuff for you. And then likewise, if they really liked YA, then he would point them to me. So yeah, like we were able to work in conjunction that weekend, and it was really great. So yeah, like I said, if you know the other author and can communicate well with them, that’s really, really helpful and, you know, help each other out, like, find out what, what readers want. I’ve been in situations where like, there was a whole table of us, I think there were like five or six of us, and again, same kind of thing. Like when we worked in conjunction with each other, it was awesome. You know, same kind of question, what do you like to read? Because, yes, I understand, we all want to like sell our book to every single person who comes along, but not every book is the right fit for every reader, and I’m a big advocate of getting the right book into the right reader’s hands. And so like I said, finding out what they like, engaging with them to really connect and build a, like, a little bit of a relationship during that short time that they’re there at your table is really, really, really helpful. And that, that way they can connect with you as the author as well. Like, you’re not just a salesperson, like you are representing yourself in that situation.
Sarina Langer 19:24
And I think what you’ve touched on there is really important, it’s that you will be talking to a lot of people and just one day on both events. But just as on social media, you’re not going to sell any books if you just say hi, this is my book, please buy it. Not interested? Please move on. That’s not gonna work. So you, you know, as you said you’re there to represent not just the book but also yourself. So making that connection is really important, but I think it’s also quite hard on those during these events because readers kind of really just want to move on and see what, what the next author is selling and what kind of cool freebies they have. I mean, we had people who I think they had made chocolates, handmade chocolates on their table. I mean, I had nothing like that. What really surprised me was that one of the first people who ever came up to my little table, I think she just came up to me and just expected to be able to take a picture with me for her scrapbook. Because a lot of readers who go to these things, at least in my tiny experience for whatever that’s worth, is they have scrapbooks of the events. So they will get every author to sign and have some goodies in there as a memory, which is a lovely idea. But that’s, that was something that I had no idea was a thing. So that was quite interesting. So they really just came up to me just like, can we just take a picture together? It’s like, Oh! Does this mean I’m famous now? Yes, we can take a picture together! Please, please.
Dana Fraedrich 20:50
You are famous. But ya know, a lot of, a lot of events and stuff like that, like they, it’s got a very friendly kind of vibe. We’re like, hey, we’re all friends here. We’re all hanging out together. It’s all very casual kind of thing.
Sarina Langer 21:04
I think the lovely thing about the bookworm community in general is that it’s, you know, as you know, it’s such a warm,
Bruin, Dana’s dog 21:11
barks
Sarina Langer 21:11
… welcoming– Oh hello!
Dana Fraedrich 21:14
Yeah, give me just a second. I know, you’re gonna have to edit this. I apologise. I will get Bruin of my room.
Sarina Langer 21:20
Not at all! Nope, this is staying in. You cannot see this, but Dana has the fluffiest, most excited dog. Oh, he’s just dancing on the bed, he’s so cute.
Dana Fraedrich 21:33
He will probably make a noise again, and I apologise for that. I tried, I tried stuffing him into the bedroom with my husband this morning. My husband’s still sleeping. It’s early for us here. And that didn’t work, he started barking in there. So I apologise.
Sarina Langer 21:47
I think many readers and authors are also animal people, really, so I don’t think anyone will be insulted that we’ve just heard your lovely dog. But I’ve kind of completely forgotten what I was going to ask
Dana Fraedrich 21:59
You, you were talking about how the bookworm community is really tight knit, we’re all really friendly.
Sarina Langer 22:05
Yes. And I think those kinds of events also reflect that. So I, you know, even though I didn’t write porn, and maybe therefore didn’t fit in on the day, I still felt like, you know, I didn’t, I wasn’t made to feel like I shouldn’t have been there. You know, all the readers were still very friendly. And there were so many who came up to my little table and just said, hi, how are you doing? What’s the book about? Can I just quickly look inside it, can I just have a look at the first page? Your cover is great. Can I take a bookmark, please?
Dana Fraedrich 22:34
Hmm. Yeah. And I mean, and sometimes that is just going to be part of the learning process and figuring out like, which events are the right fit for your books and you as an author, but I love, I love that even though like your your genre didn’t match the genre that was predominantly represented at that event, like you still felt like, you weren’t being like shunned or anything.
Sarina Langer 22:58
No. And I should say that I did sell some books. So even though I think most readers were definitely there for the erotica, there were also some readers there who didn’t mind maybe reading something else, and maybe who was specifically looking for other things. I wasn’t the only author there who wasn’t writing erotica. There were a few others. Just not most of us. So I found one– No, you go.
Dana Fraedrich 23:22
No, you go ahead.
Sarina Langer 23:23
Okay. So I think one thing maybe that’s worth considering before you go to the event yourself is how you’re going to decorate your table. Because they don’t really give you anything at all in that regard. They literally just give you a table with white cloth and say this is your space, make it your own. Go.
Dana Fraedrich 23:43
Pretty much, yeah.
Sarina Langer 23:44
Do you have any tips for decorating it?
Dana Fraedrich 23:47
Absolutely. So I, this is something I love, I’m not actually that good at it. To be honest, a lot of my table setup has come from my older sister and my husband, who they’re both just better with like arranging space than I am. I am not very talented with the whole like spatial dimension stuff. So yeah, but you know, and I do want to, I do want to warn people, this is going to be a learning process. This is going to be an evolution. My table setup has changed a lot. And as you add more books or other products, it’s going to change again and again and again. So be patient with yourself. Don’t be afraid to experiment with different things. You might have to put items in different places to catch people’s eye more. It’s a learning process, but I always try to do a couple of different things with my table setup.
Dana Fraedrich 24:40
Number one, I try to make it inviting. It’s just, it’s just nice. I want to create a little bit like a warm space, so I have some fairy lights and stuff that I string up and they’re just pretty. I also try to have my, my table do double duty, just like with our words and our books, like we’re trying to give our words a lot of different jobs. So my table or my table decorations, rather, they tend to also communicate that I write steampunk. So like I… This is like two days of my life that was totally worth it, but I’m not getting it back. So I like stamped gear shape since I write steampunk over my big white tablecloth and it like I said, it took me like two days to do, but it looks really, really good. So like white tablecloth, gold gears are just all over this thing. And that, you know, it’s kind of just a quick indicator to people, oh, steampunk gears! Because people who know the steampunk genre know that gears are kind of, you know, the symbol of that. Just like with dark fantasy or like if you have vampires like fangs might be a thing. Or I’m trying to think of another example. Oh, obviously romance, you might have hearts.
Sarina Langer 25:52
And that’s, that’s very good advice. Thank you. What kind, like in your experience, what kind of merchandise and freebies do you think readers most likely to be interested in on those events? Obviously, for your genre, there’s going to be some things that maybe a horror writer wouldn’t really be able to include so much. But is there anything maybe a bit more generic that you would recommend people definitely pack for the day?
Dana Fraedrich 26:19
I find bookmarks really helpful. I printed bookmarks, uh, I had business cards printed for myself. Nobody cared about my business cards, everyone wanted the bookmarks. So I think those are great. And for whatever reason, bookmarks just disappear. Readers always need more of them. So I always recommend those. Generally, anything like I said that you’re going to give away for free, they, they shouldn’t cost you a lot of money. Because that’s, that’s an investment on your part. And things like bookmarks are probably going to get you the biggest return on that investment.
Sarina Langer 26:55
Bookmarks are so handy to use as well, because obviously they might actually buy your book, and then they can also put your bookmark in there. But even if they don’t buy your book, they still have the free bookmark. So if they like the design of that, and then they keep end up using that a lot then they will still see all your information on there. Maybe one day they’ll go, maybe I should check out this lovely lady called Dana, see what she’s writing because the bookmark was pretty, I thought I remember meeting her once.
Dana Fraedrich 27:20
Hmm, yeah. Um, so yeah, and definitely when you, when you do give away free stuff, make sure it has the information on it that you want people to see, like, don’t trust that, oh, maybe they’ll like go to my website and see my name or see my books or something. Like, in some cases, you’re only going to have one shot at, like, maybe getting that person’s attention. So like I said, I think the path of least resistance was probably your best bet. So like, put your name on there. Do, like, a picture of your books or something like that on there or a tagline for like what your books are about. And this is, this is honestly one of the hardest parts, I think, is figuring out a quick pitch or tagline for your book. Like this is why there are professional marketers of which I am not one of them.
Sarina Langer 28:10
And yet you’re doing so well.
Dana Fraedrich 28:12
Well, it’s been a long road.
Sarina Langer 28:16
Just goes to show what perseverance really can do for you in this business. Because there’s a lot of that, isn’t there?
Dana Fraedrich 28:23
There’s like so much perseverance.
Sarina Langer 28:25
I think we’ve talked about this ahead of time, this may go horribly wrong. I apologise if it does. Do you have an action step prepared for our listeners today?
Dana Fraedrich 28:36
I do. Yes. Okay. So basically, um, I know right now with COVID these live events are just kind of out, unfortunately. But like I said, they will be back one day
Sarina Langer 28:48
They’ll be back.
Dana Fraedrich 28:50
Exactly. But so what I recommend is taking this time that we have now to do a little bit of research. Google events in your area, whether it’s book fairs, like I said, our big one here in Nashville is the Southern Festival of Books, like that’s our statewide book fair. And those sort of events are fantastic. So Google what your state book fairs are or your county book fair, I don’t really know how it works there in England.
Sarina Langer 29:13
We certainly don’t have anywhere near as much choice as you guys have. But then we’re a much smaller place. Now I know there is this massive book fair, that’s happening every year in London. I’m sure if you are from Britain listening to this right now you know this. And you know the one that I did, that was in Brighton, but that’s in a different city every year. So it’s worth looking into that.
Dana Fraedrich 29:33
Yeah. So and it may not be a book fair, it might be for instance, I do a lot of comic conventions as well. So there might be a comic convention that happens near you. So like I said, take advantage of this time that you have right now and do some research on the events that are near you, like about what time of the year they occur because you’re wanting to, you’re going to want to do some planning, and maybe make plans for next year like if they have their dates to figure out, okay, which, which event do I want to go visit first? Like I said, I visited this other festival of books before I actually was a vendor there, and it was a very educational experience. So maybe make plans and you know, start thinking about events that you’d want to go check out as possible sites for you to try and sell your stuff and see what, what vendors are there, see what people are selling at those events. And again, that’ll be a really good indicator for if that event might be a good fit for your books, or whatever it is that you’re selling.
Sarina Langer 30:33
I would add to that as well that, if you are thinking about joining one yourself as an author, try to book it early. Because in my experience, they get booked, they get booked up very fast. And you might get in, I mean, you might not get in right away, but you might still get on the waiting list, which you might think probably means that you won’t be able to participate. But actually, for many different reasons, lots of authors might end up dropping out. And then you might, you know, still get in after all. So it’s worth letting them put you on the waiting list, even if you can’t get in right away. But just see if you can maybe get in there right away. Maybe you can set up a notification or something that alerts you when one that you really want to be part of is looking for authors again.
Dana Fraedrich 31:16
Yeah, and I actually, that’s, that’s a great tip, because that is something I do when I want to apply for an event. But maybe applications aren’t open yet. I’ll put a calendar reminder in for either to check on it if there’s no date for when applications are going to open, or if there is a date, then putting that into your calendar, like apply today or whatever. I’ve actually got something like that for Worldcon which you may have, may or may not have heard of. It happens in like a different place somewhere in the world every year, and next year it is near where I grew up in Washington, DC. So–
Sarina Langer 31:54
Oh, wow. How nostalgic for you!
Dana Fraedrich 31:57
Well, we’ll see what happens.
Sarina Langer 32:00
Thank you very much. I think if we leave it on that, that’s a really good spot to finish on I think. Thank you very much for sharing your wisdom with us, Dana. And thank you so much for being here with me.
Dana Fraedrich 32:11
Absolutely thrilled, and Bruin is saying goodbye to all you good people, so say goodbye to Bruin.
Sarina Langer 32:16
Bye!
Dana Fraedrich 32:18
Bye!
Sarina Langer 32:23
If you enjoyed today’s episode, maybe learn something along the way, hit the subscribe button. You can also connect with me on Twitter @sarina_langer, on Instagram and Facebook @sarinalangerwriter, and of course on my website at sarinalanger.com. Until next time! Bye!
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