Nerdology 101: Prep for Events
Hiiii! Welcome back to Nerdology 101. Our topic for this week is prep for events. The end of summer/beginning of fall has always been busier for me in terms of events. In August, I have an in-store signing at The New Romantics Bookstore in Orlando, Flordia. Then, in September, I have a romance bookcon called Love Among the Pages in London, Ontario, Canada. Finally, there’s a dark romance and romantasy bookcon called Smoke & Embers in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada in October that I’ll be doing. So, this year before the event season comes into full swing, I wanted to take some time out to tell you what my process looks like and how I make sure these events are great for my readers and all the wonderful readers I’ve yet to find. Let’s get into some Nerdology!
Booth Prep
The first and most obvious way I have to prepare is by planning my booth. For the in-store signing, they ordered from Ingram. That’s not much of an option for conventions, though. Thus, I have to provide the copies. For both events, I have a Beventi page setup, you can find them here to either learn more about the process or to pre-order copies if you’re going to be attending one of these events. Beventi is a service that allows authors to collect pre-orders before an event. This is a huge help because it gives us an idea of how many copies we need to bring. Other factors we use in making that decision involve ticket sales. If there’s going to be 1000 people at an event, for example, bringing 500 books doesn’t make much sense because it’s unlikely that 50% of the total attendees are going to buy your book. These events involve quite a few authors and vendors. A better target would be to bring 75-100 books with the goal of selling to between 7.5 and 10 percent of the attendees. Of course, the pre-orders could totally change that. If I have 100 pre-orders coming from an event with 1000 attendees, I’m bringing at least 200 books because at that point, I know there’s an unusually high amount of interest coming from that events audience.
Beyond ordering books, there’s the matter of decorating my booth! The cool looking ones pull in much more attention. There’s table cloths, runners, candles, and a ton of other options we can use to draw the attention of people at an event. Last year, I attended my first convention and over the course of a few days, I got to see so many other authors booths and got some ideas about how to set mine up in the future. This year, hopefully I’ll be able to implement some of those ideas. Doing so is a bit of an investment, but it’s one well worth it from what I’ve gathered. Naturally, as I continue to grow, I’ll probably work on my display more over time. This will be a great starting point, though!
Financial Prep
Since I just touched on this in one aspect, I’ll go ahead and do this section next. There are a lot of expenses that go into an event, particularly ones that are further away from the author’s home base, like these ones are for me. For the signing at The New Romantics and for Love Among the Pages, I’m flying in, so plane tickets are a factor. For Smoke and Embers, I’ll be driving because I’ll have someone with me to switch out with, so there’s gas and tolls. I’m also renting a hotel room for all three events, and getting a rental car for one. When you factor in book ordering, booth decorations, and eating while I’m there, it adds up. I consider myself extremely lucky that I’m able to invest in myself this way, especially since there’s never a guaruntee that you’ll sell enough to get it back. Usually, though, the value of these events lies in the long term pay off more than the immediate selling enough to make your money back. The event I had in April is the best example of that I can fathom.
At the event, I sold 4 books. After the event, I sold a ton more. First to a bookstore who’s owner I met at the event, she ended up making a wholesale order. Then, I was able to sell several more copies using the paperbacks with the pink sprayed edges another author had done for me at the event at another bookstore. All in all, I came to that event with 20 or 30 books (I don’t remember exactly) and within a week after it, I only had 7 left, meaning I sold most of the stock because of the event, but not at it. It was more than enough to cover the cost of attendance, the book order, and leave me some money leftover though. Further, I know half of the stock the second bookstore had has already been sold and that at least one copy has gone from the first one (she texted me to let me know she sold one the first day it was listed, but I don’t know how many she’s sold since. It’s not time to check on that yet).
So, as you can see, the post-event effect is (in my experience) where you get the money back. Thus, it’s perfectly fine with me if I don’t always sell enough at an event to make every penny I spent back plus some profit. What matters to me is the connection with readers and industry professionals that contribute more to my overall progress as an author than the immediate regaining of that money would anyway.
Mental Prep
Full disclosure: I’m an introvert (that’s so totally obvious, I know). I also have anxiety and PTSD. Events like these are probably taxing on extroverts with no mental health struggles, that goes doubly for someone like me. Thus, in order to ensure I’m not a total wreck at events, I do a lot of pre-event prep in mind, making sure I’m in the right headspace to actually participate in the event. Ones that only last a few hours, like the in-store signing, are much easier. The conventions, however, are an entirely different beast. They’re usually several consecutive days long and are both morning and afternoon. They draw much larger crowds because of the sheer volume of authors and vendors, plus the on-site entertainment like panels and balls. Doing conventions is a major commitment on the mental bandwidth front.
To counteract the chaos, I usually allot myself multiple days both before and after the convention to hibernate in peace. These hibernation periods typically involve alternating book and anime binges, lots of junk food, and plenty of rest. Ultimately, they help me relax before I hop either in the car or on a plane and let the chaos begin.
During the event, I make sure I have my beads. I use them like a fidget when my anxiety starts to bug me and they double as a cool conversation piece when people notice them, so they help me break the ice too.
Promotional Prep
Now that we’ve talked a ton about what I do personally, I’d like to talk about how promotion usually goes. Usually, I post about an event shortly after my attendance is offically confirmed. Then, I leave it be until pre-orders go live, if the event has pre-orders. I share those as early as possible too. Otherwise, I wait until the event is coming up. For conventions, I wait until about 2-3 months beforehand to start posting about them more (trying to lock in more pre-orders before I place my orders). Then, for signings, I usually start pushing about a month beforehand since I typically don’t do the ordering for those and my priority is to generate interest without burning people out. As you might have guessed, this very post is part of a promotional push that began yesterday when me and The New Romantics posted a collaboration post with the official event graphics for my signing there. Since these events are pretty close together, a lot of the promotion will be happening back-to-back. No worries, though! It won’t be getting boring. There’s a lot of different stuff I can discuss this close to a series of events. Announcements are only part of the deal. Instead, you should imagine insight posts like this one, little tidbits about my plans for the events, little features about the people I’m most excited about meeting at each, and more!
You do have to wait a but longer for all that. That’s all I have for this segment of Nerdology 101 (don’t wanna tell you everything right now, lol). Check back next week for a new blog post, make sure you’re following my social (@malevato6 on IG, @authormarialevato on TT, and @marialevato.com on Bluesky). And, as always, make sure you have yourself a nerdy week!
