Why I am no longer doing big book signing events.
If you’re on TikTok/Booktok, your feed’s probably been inundated for the past few days with a plethora of posts about the debacle that was A MILLION LIVES BOOK FESTIVAL this past weekend in Baltimore, Maryland.
I haven’t seen one good post and I’ve watched about 100 different readers and authors comment on the horribleness of the event. Few readers, a large outlay of cash for the authors, no help, no water, no directions to anything. Even the tables for the authors weren’t what was promised.
There were advertised PANELS with authors and readers that never occurred, and one that did, a Narrator discussion panel, took place in a small room with no chairs or tables or microphone, so the narrators and readers sat on the floor – on the floor!!!!- and listened to the narrators speak for a few minutes.
There were(expensive) tiered admission fees that included a FANTASY BALL on Saturday night for $250. It took place in an open room, no food, and a cash bar. I don’t know about you, but I think a BALL should have food and drink and music. No to the food and music. Cash bar. I can’t get over that one because what was the $250.00 for? From all the videos of the event, it looked like maybe a total of 40 people attended, and from what I’ve heard, most of those were authors.
The event was poorly attended by readers, most likely because there was no advertising done for it. The authors stated there were no signs directing readers to the hall where the signing occurred, no information about panels and where they were happening. Basically, no information at all. No swag bags, no name tags or lanyards. No information.
For people who don’t know this, attending a booksigning is a huge expense for most authors. We have to pay table fees ( the cost of renting a table to display our books), travel expenses, hotel room fees, we have to pay for our books in order to have stock to sell them. Add in swag, table decorations, anything and everything you pay for so that you can draw readers to your table, and the ROI (return on investment) is mostly never what the outlay of cash was. I’ve written several times on this blog that I’ve gone to events and spent $1000 and didn’t sell one book.
You can’t sustain a career on that.
So this is the reason I have stopped doing big book signings. In the past year I have heard about events that have gotten too big for their britches ( Apollycon, Getting Witchy with it, and Readers take Denver just to name a few I’ve heard spoken poorly of) and subsequently have had author and reader complaints abound.
I’m done complaining.
The events I choose to attend now are somewhat smaller ( some really small) and I am happy with that. I don’t have thousands of dollars to lay out for travel, rooms, table fees, etc, and not make any money in return. That’s a horrible business model because you don’t go into business to actually lose money.
The ones I attend now, and that I know treat the authors and readers respectfully are BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS, RomanceinCNY, and Romanticonn.
My favorite signings, though, are the small, library ones, with The Bigelow Library Event in Clinton, MA being my favorite.
It’s a shame these big events turn out so poorly. Poor attendance, poor communication, poor ROI for authors and readers.
If you know of any tried and true events, where things turn out well and the authors and readers leave happy, please comment with their names and maybe even links so others can learn about them. I stick mainly to the East Coast now because of travel concerns, and money issues, but I know there are other events that do well.
Peggy Jaeger, Author 