Saturday, July 7, 2018

Uncertainty on book stock needed = stress!

I have a book event coming up toward the end of August called Sellersburg Celebrates. This is an annual festival held in Sellersburg, Indiana Aug 23 - 25th, 2018. They have bands, a parade, tons of booths, rides and games, and food. I have talked with the writers group I am in, and several of us thought this would be a cool event to go to.

Sellersburg Celebrates festival












I have never been to the festival at all, and this will be the first time I go to an event that we are solely responsible for set up - of everything! We need a tent, extension cords, fire extinguisher, tables, table covering, fans (because it is usually hotter than Hades in August!), sign advertising our writers group (which we don't have and haven't really talked about), and probably more that I haven't thought about.

I think I have the logistics of what's needed under control. At our next 2 writers group meetings we will work out the schedule of who's going to be on hand due to the fact that our booth must be manned at all times when the festival is open. Luckily the times Thursday and Friday are early afternoon. We will take an inventory of who is going to be working the festival and what books they will be bringing. We have a wide range of genres covered and should offer an excellent selection for anyone in the market for a new book.

My dilemma comes in with the number of books I should have on hand. The most books I've ever sold at an event was 4. But I've NEVER gone to an event where they expect 5,000 - 10,000 people visit! I don't want to buy too many books in which I'm stuck with a bunch of inventory for years. Is twenty to buy too much, not enough? I do have 2 more selling events lined up within a month after Sellersburg Celebrates, so I would have more opportunity to sell more.

I am thinking I need to have between 20 to 30 books on hand. It is a lot of up-front cost, but I don't like the idea of running out of inventory during such a well-attended event. On the other hand, there are not a lot of book sellers at this type of event. It's a gamble if anyone is going to want to buy books, and even more of a gamble if those book readers happen to be into the genre I write.

So, I'm going to put a hurt on the pocketbook for some more books, but it won't be earth-shattering if I don't sell a lot. I was hoping to have the 2nd book in the series out before the festival, but it seems it's slow going with my publisher. We'll aim for later for the newest book.

Okay, I'll keep you posted on how this event goes!

Happy writing and stay Paranormally Weird!
Penny

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