I Went For A Book Walk Last Weekend Part 1

Last weekend I attended the Book Walk organized by Nutmeg Lit Fest in Wethersfield, Connecticut. A one-mile round trip walk on a ridiculously nice day.

Nutmeg Lit Fest is an organization that promotes its Connecticut writer members. Because many of those members are self-published, they may not get many opportunities for their books to be featured in bookstores. (Two million books are supposed to be published annually. Bookstores can't absorb all of them.) Self-published writers, then, have to rely on handselling. The Nutmeg Lit Fest Facebook group provides support for these writers, publicizing their events.

Additionally, Nutmeg Lit Fest's partners, among them Heidi Rocha (sorry I don't have the names of the others), organize events like Old Wethersfield Book Walk for its authors to meet the public and sell books in unique venues such as shopping areas with foot traffic or at town events. The writers bring some shoppers to the area, the area already has shoppers, and a sort of symbiotic/mutualism relationship is created. (No, I don't know much about biology. Let's think metaphorically here, okay?)

Heidi Rocha

There used to be a few traditional literary festivals in Connecticut, but they began disappearing even before the pandemic. We cannot blame the loss of the Connecticut Children's Book Fair on that. With book festivals. though, readers/shoppers still have to come to the books, just as they have to come to the books in bookstores. The Connecticut Children's Book Fair was successful, pulling in 2,000 people a weekend I was told once, but those were people interested in children's books and willing to make their way to the fair. The fair was in Storrs, home of the main University of Connecticut campus. No one has ever called Storrs a convenient location.

Something Different

One of at least 4 Book Walk stops

What Nutmeg Lit Fest does that is different is bring books to people instead of hoping people will come to the books. Last weekend that set-up worked very well.

The Authors Guild Bulletin includes a chapter called The Cruelty—and Possibilities— of 21st-Century Book Promotion by Michael Castleman (The Untold Story of Books). In it Castleman says that an average of 2 million books a year are published, as I've already mentioned. Eighty percent of those books, he says, including books from traditional publishers, will sell fewer than 100 copies, a figure I've seen before. 

Even if you subtract textbooks, which have a captive audience, from the 2 million yearly published books, we're still talking hundreds of thousands of books coming out every single year, piled up on top of what was published in years past. I don't know how many readers are out there, but I'm going to stick my head out that there aren't hundreds of thousands of them. All the regular readers who read multiple...or many... books a year, cannot read all the books that are being turned out.

On Saturday, one of the writers I spoke to said he (or she, I truly can't remember who it was) had sold 200 copies of a book in a few months. That didn't sound like much until I read Castleman's article yesterday and was reminded of the 100-copy figure. 

Which brings me back to Nutmeg Lit Fest and the something different it does. Because Nutmeg Lit Fest takes its authors out into the community, it is exposing its authors and their books to people in the community who may not be traditional readers who would go to a bookstore or a literary festival. 

To sell more books, you have to find more readers. You have to create readers who were not readers before. You don't do this in bookstores and literary festivals, which attract people who are already readers. You have to go where the nonreaders are.

Handselling Is A Lot Of Work

Back in my day, boys and girls, as a traditionally published writer I could rely on my publisher to do the bulk of my bookselling. I created a website, started blogging, marketed myself as a speaker to schools, and became involved with social media. It seemed like a lot to do at the time, especially when it is so difficult to determine your Return on Investment for any individual book marketing attempt. Except for situations like school appearances that might involve the school selling your books to students or even buying some, it's hard to tell which things you did that resulted in a sale.

The writers I've been seeing at the Nutmeg Lit Fest Facebook page (I'm a member) and at the two events it sponsored that I attended are doing a great deal more. I'll get into more of that in my next post.

What I will say for now is that in days of old, I had a network of sorts with children's writers in New England. These days I am building connections with writers in Connecticut. 

Gerald E. Augustine

I've met Gerald E. Augustine, author of Vietnam Beyond and the subject of Passion in Life, twice now. Same with Heidi Roche. There were at least two other authors at Saturday's event that I've met.

Wesleyan University Press

Wesleyan University Press, a Connecticut publisher, had a table at Saturday's event. Though this was my first contact with the organization, I used to know Susan Campbell, the author of a couple of the books it was featuring. 

Jennifer Regan-Lefebre

Another university press, University of California Press, published Jennifer Regan-Lefebre's book, Imperial Wine, which interested me because while I only drink cheap wine (but not that cheap) I am a sucker for history books, which is what Imperial Wine is. I had not met Jennifer before, but she is a historian, and I am a history reader. She's also a professor at Trinity College in Hartford, which, wouldn't you know it, I did not attend. But years ago, I'm talking maybe decades, I somehow managed to wrangle my way into a free essay symposium there. (I did something similar at UConn. I used to be shameless. Now I'm too lazy to do things like that.) Anyway, I feel connection, people. It takes very little for me to feel that. 

Next time I'll be covering other writers who appeared at Old Wethersfield Book Walk and discussing some of the marketing they're doing.

What Passes for Professional Self-improvement Here

My Personal Short Story Study

Over the last few months, I've been "studying" short story writing by going over notes from workshops I've taken. I'm done with that. Now I've started going through material I've collected and saved on the subject, including an article listing the best short stories to teach yourself how to write. 

So far, these seem like the best short stories to encourage you to give up writing altogether. Or maybe even reading.

Pinterest

Then today I read Pinterest Is My Best-Kept Author Marketing Secret by Melissa Bourbon at Jane Friedman. Bourbon says that followers don't matter at Pinterest, because it's a search engine. You can use it to direct people to your writing.

Well, I'm on Pinterest, and though I don't have much to sell, I thought maybe I could use it to encourage people to read my humor, essays, and short stories. Maybe I could use Pinterest to get my name out for that kind of writing now that I'm not writing children's books.

Well, I took a look at my Pinterest boards, which I haven't touched in 3 years. As you can see from the menu to the left, I don't even link to it here. I think I forgot about it. I sure hope followers truly don't matter there, because I only have 14. And the page seems kind of a mess of both my writing, my design work for characters in books that never found publishers, and things I'm just interested in. (Learning French!) 

I did a little searching to see what other writers are doing on Pinterest, and it seems the same. Though they seem to have more boards. And are there all that many writers there? Really? 

So maybe I'll do a little work on Pinterest, but it will be low priority.

Lower than the short story study.