Getting Book Buyers to Your Author Events

One of the most difficult things to make happen when you are a beginning author is getting potential book buyers to events where your books are being sold. There is nothing more disappointing than having your first book signing and discovering that only two or three people have shown up. It's even worse when neither buys your book. So, what can you do to ensure a great turn out to your author event? It's actually not as difficult as you might think.

1. Pay for an ad in your local newspaper. This is a biggie, because a lot of people still prefer to read paper newspapers rather than the online versions. While it is not a guarantee that paying for an ad will drive people to your event, it certainly makes it more likely.

2. Utilize My Space, Facebook and other social networking websites to reach people in your local area. I love Facebook for this because you can actually search for people who live in the same city as you and who like to read the types of books you write. You can friend them, and then you can post your event in the Upcoming Events section of your Facebook page. My space gives you the ability to do this as well, and to both post a bulletin which all your friends will see, and to schedule an event.

3. Hand out Flyers. Yup, stand out in front of the place you're having the event the day before, or even the day of before the actual event, and hand out flyers that give information about your event. While doing this will not guarantee that more people will show up, the odds of someone in the group liking your books, or your genre and coming out of curiosity are pretty good.

4. Post flyers in your neighborhood about the event. Post them anywhere it is legal to such as bulletin boards, windows in local businesses, and the counter of the bookstore or business where you are having the event. Wherever, just make sure you do this one enough in advance that people have a chance to see it and remember to go if they are interested. If you put them up the day before, you are going to draw less of a crowd because even in our fast paced world, people still need some kind of notice.

5. Write press releases. Yes, you heard me correctly. You don't have to pay to post press releases online, so write up a release for your event and then submit it to free press release websites such as Free Press Release, and I-Newswire to name two. You'd be surprised how many journalists looking for stories peruse online press releases. You never know when an enterprising journalist is going to give you a call and want to interview you for the local paper! This is even better if for some reason you could not place the ad in your local newspaper. So press releases really are important, and while you can pay some places to post them, I've found my free ones on Google within a day or two of posting them, so they get indexed relatively quickly.

6. Offer an incentive to attend your event. An incentive can be anything from free foods and drinks, such as cookies and juice, to a free e-book on disk of a short story set in the same universe as your fiction book, or a small report that has extra details that are helpful to have in conjunction with your non-fiction book. I've personally found both of these to be a good way to draw potential new readers to a book signing. Freebies are always a good way to break the ice.

7. Write about your author events in your blog. Most authors have a blog these days and if they don't then they should have. Blogging is a huge trend, and if you're a writer it can be one very nice way to give yourself some free advertising. While there is no guarantee that locals will read your blog, you never know when a local journalist, or book store owner might see your post and want to interview you or schedule another event. Also if your blog has a large amount of traffic, then chances are there will be some local people from your area that come across your blog, and will see your posting.

8. Have an event calendar on your website. Bravenet offers many free webmaster tools, one of these being an online event calendar. Just like it is important for you to have a website if you are an author, it is just as important for you to have an event calendar. This way when potential book buyers visit your website for more information on you and your books, they can look at the event calendar and find when you will be in their area.

9. Invite your friends, family and neighbors to your author's event. People like the idea of hobnobbing with a published author. So be sure and invite your friends, family and neighbors to your event so they too can bask in your glory. Another cool thing about inviting them is they will most likely be more than willing to help out at your event.

10. Advertise your event during a virtual book tour. Many authors participate in virtual book tours now. This is where the author is interviewed and or visits certain blogs and websites to talk about their books. If you can schedule your virtual book tour a week or so before your actual event then you can use this opportunity to get the word out about your event. The more exposure you have offline as well as online will increase the odds for your event to have a large turnout and hence for you to sell more books.

The majority of these tips are free and will cost you nothing but a little extra time to put into motion. However, even were you were to do only three or four of them, you would most likely encourage more potential book buyers to attend your event. In a world where the publisher no longer does much advertising for the author, it is imperative that we as authors become more creative with our marketing campaigns.