Author Event at New Murray Barnes and Noble Location was an Amazing Success

Yesterday, I hosted my second ever book signing at the amazing new Barnes and Noble location in Murray, Utah. When I scheduled the event, I knew that it would be an author highlight event, so I was prepared to bring in all of my published works to date (8 books, and one with two versions).

The Staff
I stopped in briefly on Friday to make sure that all the books could be processed through the register, and the staff that were there were amazing in helping me get a plan together so that I could sell all of my books. 

Throughout the entire process (scheduling the event, prepping my books, setting up, and of course, throughout the three hour event), the staff were incredibly kind, friendly, and just generally amazing to work with. I felt completely welcome, and will definitely be reaching out to schedule more events in the future!
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The Location
Oh, boy. I won't spend too much time on this piece, because my focus is the event itself, but I've got to just mention how beautiful the location is. Thanks to the new bookshelves, the entire store has this mystical, labyrinthian vibe to it, but the big labels on all the shelves makes everything easy to find. This is one of those large locations with an upstairs and a downstairs, and the cafe is gorgeous!

If you haven't yet seen this location for yourself, I would definitely recommend visiting. 

The People
When I got to the store yesterday, and got everything set up, I immediately started getting people who came to look at the spread on the table. I had some bookmarks and stickers, and had one copy of each of my books displayed on the table, and I was amazed by how many people asked me to tell them about my books. By the end of the event, I'd gotten pretty great with my elevator pitch for each book - especially for my YA fantasy books. 

I was so grateful for all the friends and family who came to support. It was incredible to see so many people who were excited to show their support!

​While there were a lot of people I knew that I didn't expect to see (thank you all for coming!), I want to talk about something that's still fairly new to me: Meeting potential readers. I met so many amazing people yesterday. I got to talk with a couple fellow authors about their books! I got to talk with some teachers (and will even be sending a set of 14 copies of my children's book Especially You to his class). I got to talk and connect with a good number of potential readers and pitch my book to them, as well as talk with them about the kinds of books they enjoy reading. 

The Sales
When I started publishing my work, I was terrified because I knew I wanted to explore different genres. Everyone I talked to, and everything I read pretty much told me the same thing: Don't write in multiple genres, because it will be more challenging to find readers, and potential readers will have the impression that you cannot master any one genre. 

Now, I understand at least some of that to be true. If you're only putting out one book per year, and it's a different genre, many readers will only wait for the new books in the genre they enjoy reading. 

But! As I experienced yesterday, having multiple genres available actually drew in more readers than I would have if I'd just brought my YA fantasy books in, and I had some really incredible conversations with these various readers throughout the event.

From what I've read in preparing for my book signing events, the average author sells 4-5 books per signing, and up to 10 if they're lucky (or have a good number of dedicated readers). In my book signing event yesterday, I sold a total of thirty books. I sold 7 children's books (and likely would have sold more, but I sold out of the 5 copies of Especially You in the first couple of hours). I sold 3 YA fiction books, and a total of 20 YA fantasy books. It was an absolutely incredible experience!  

Thank you all for reading, and for all the support you've been sending this way as I continue to learn and grow on my author journey. I apologize if this post is a bit more messy than my others. I wanted to get this all down yesterday, but I didn't have enough time! Check back next week for more writing things!