My First Book Festival, Part 1

I had been looking forward to this for months. Months, I tell you! I had paid for memberships in the writer’s organization that organized the Sunshine State Book Festival in Gainesville FL, and then, I paid for and reserved a full table at their book festival, held on Jan 28, 2023. I read all their emails, trying to figure out how this would be different from having a table at a Midwest sf convention, either literary or media. Because that was where I had sharpened my teeth, so to speak, trying to sell our books.

It would only be 1 day long, not like those Midwest cons, which were almost always 3 days long. Okay, okay, there would be a ‘Meet and Greet’ for 2 hours on Friday night, which might be analogous to a sf con’s con suite on Friday night, but it was only for 2 hours. Surely I could manage that, couldn’t I? Let’s face it, when it comes to sitting and not speaking to anyone, I was one of the best.

Saturday would be the actual book festival. It would be one big dealer’s room, to compare it to sf cons, with each author getting half a table from which to sell their books. There would be no wall of t-shirts, games, or other things being sold, only books. I’ve done 3 and even 5 days sitting behind a table and trying to sell things, so 1 day can’t be too bad. I could do that. Besides, my husband, who is a natural talker, would be there to start conversations and hopefully whet the appetite of potential customers for the books we were selling. Piece of cake.

There would also be ‘panels’, although in the case of this book festival, they were a limited number of readings scheduled throughout the day. I put both our names in as willing to read, but neither of us was selected. Well, pooh. But really, was there a difference between not being selected to read and giving a reading to an empty room?

So I was ready, at least mentally, to go and see how many books we could sell.

And then things kind of fell apart. Or seemed to.

The writer’s group suggested bringing 10 copies of each book to sell. I normally only take 5 or 6 copies each when I go to a convention. But I dutifully set about packing up 10 copies each… only to find I had several books that I didn’t have 10 copies of. With less than a week before the festival, I didn’t have time to order any more. I’d just have to deal with the numbers I had.

I had recently upgraded my old android phone to an old iphone, and I suddenly discovered my square card reader would not plug into my apple phone. Luckily, my son came to my rescue, ordered a new card reader that would plug into my apple from Amazon, which delivered it on Sunday. One disaster averted.

My husband was sick with a sinus infection, which he’d been waiting for 2 months to see the sinus specialist, so he was getting pretty blasted sick. I didn’t want to leave him alone for 2 ½ days, so we planned on him going to Gainsville with me, but staying in the hotel room if he wasn’t up to going to the festival. Another disaster averted.

Or was it? He managed to sleep pretty decently the day before I was to drive to Gainesville, and decided he would just stay home while I went. I wasn’t exactly happy with that plan, but the alternative was that I stayed home with him, which would be throwing away all the money I had spent on this endeavor. So I filled the frig up with food that required little work to get ready to eat. And when it came time to drive off, I went. Maybe next year, I can get him to come with me.