Making Lemonade

Remember when you were a kid and you and your sister, brother, neighbor, or schoolmate decided to make some money by selling lemonade, cookies, watermelon, or stuff you thought your mother didn’t need? Well, the adult equivalent for a self-published author is a street fair or book festival where you rent booth space or set up your own table and sell a few of those books you have stored in your garage.

How simple it was to mix up a pitcher of lemonade compared to the effort that went into writing and publishing your own book! But, the selling process is so similar it’s scary. Set table and chair (or chairs) on sidewalk. Put up sign. Arrange product on table, making sure you haven’t forgotten anything. Smile at passersby, sit and wait. After fifteen or twenty minutes, rearrange product to make it more attractive. Try facing your sign in a different direction. Keep smiling, try waving at people passing by. Look at your watch and wait some more.

When someone does stop, you explain as quickly as you can why your product is better than someone else selling the same or similar thing. When you get a smile or polite nod as your potential customer walks away, you absorb the sting of rejection and say, “I understand,” “Maybe next time,” or “Thanks for stopping by.”

Once in a while you actually make a sale, and you gush all over your customer with effusive thank-yous and compliments, assuring this fantastic person he or she will be happy with their decision. Then you try to remember exactly what you said or did to clinch the sale. You use this method several more times, usually to no avail, sigh, and resume wait mode.

Street Fairs

Every summer the town of Klamath Falls, Oregon (where I grew up) holds street fairs the third Thursday in June, July, and August. The fairs are held in the center of the central business district, which is closed to all but pedestrian traffic between the hours of 6:00 and 9:00 p.m. Three times over the last ten years I rented a space (literally a spot on the street), set up my table and put up my sign. In 2010 I sold twenty books thanks to getting the word out that my first novel was hot off the press. I sold most of the books to friends or acquaintances—sort of like when I used to sell three glasses of lemonade, one to Mom and two to our next door neighbors. I did worse the next two times I participated; selling ten books the second time and seven the last.

Book Festivals

I also tried selling books at a much larger book fair, the Florence Festival of Books, an annual event held in Florence, Oregon the last Saturday in September. I sold five books the one time I participated in this fair. It was a well organized book show in a lovely indoor venue, but after a four-hour drive requiring an overnight stay in a motel I won’t be going back. Keep in mind a book show is different from a street fair in that you are competing with hundreds of other books, not just snack foods, beer, and knick-knacks.

My advice is to attend street fairs close to home. You will pay less rent, possibly none, see friends or acquaintances, and people attending local fairs are usually in the mood to buy something. Meanwhile, you will get some fresh air, have interesting conversations, hone your “elevator pitch,” eat a corn dog maybe an elephant ear, and end up selling a few books.