1) There are the "back of the book" readers
2) Then there's the cover-art-sold-me-readers (no need to read the back!)
3) The endorsement page inspectors
4) The read-the-first-page-readers (there were also some who opened to a random page in the middle of the book)
5) Lastly, there were those who, of course, did some combo form of the above 4 methods :)
Several people who bought the book even came back and gave me updates on where they were at in the story! That was fun.
At an event this big, you meet a lot of fellow writers too. Lots of teenagers love to write, and it was cool encouraging them and hearing about there great ideas.
There were some other cool booths at the festival. My favorites were the Crown of Life Comics (there blog is HERE) and a fabulous fantasy artist Caleb Havertape.
And the last bit of good news...American Midnight was review over at Angie's blog! Check it out :)
14 comments:
Sounds like fun. Thanks for the link to my blog!
Your welcome Angie! :)
Sounds awesome! Congratulations on a successful trip!
Sounds like a lot of fun. Must be great to promote your book like that.
When I'm considering a book, I use a combination of your points 1) and both versions 4).
Hope it goes well :)
Hey Peter,
You're a savvy book buyer :)
And then there were those people who asked us what the book was about as they gave the cover a good looking over. They listened intently as we tried to convey all the exciting parts of the story, to which they said, "Oh," put the book down and walked away.
Mike
Mike's completely right. It's terrible how me, as an author, can completely make my own story sound simplistic and boring. I think I'll write my next blog on this topic
...Why I write stories instead of telling them.
Brandon,
Don't be so hard on yourself. When people go into bookstores to buy a book, they usually have a certain type of story or genre in mind. Most readers are particular about what they read. Since we only had sci-fi and political suspense books to offer them, chances are they are stories that wouldn't normally interest them. We could have dazzled every perspective buyer with our pithy descriptions and engaging rhetoric, but if it's a story that that's not for them, no amount of polish will make a difference.
Mike
Yeah, I'm a combo. Since I have so many books I want to read, I do the first four of those before buying a book (being a picky reader isn't that fun!).
I'm glad the trip was a success!
I'm with you Chris...so many books to read...so little time. I need an extra day in every day to do all the things I'd like!
Glad it went well!
Thanks Robert :)
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