About a week ago, I spent the day at a nice, large public library in a nearby city that was holding an event called Authorpalooza.
The hope: library patrons would flock to the event, discover local authors, and buy their books.
The reality: It was mostly authors talking to each other about the writing life, looking at and sometimes buying each other’s books.
Still fun, though.
Here’s my book table. I sold exactly one book. In the background, you can see authors talking to each other.
Genres represented included sci-fi, witchy cat books, LDS time-travel historical fiction, Christian YA fantasy, thriller set in a morgue (really!), thrillers set around Indian reservations, practical self-help for authors, and different genres of romance (spicy, comic, cozy, etc.).
This one author’s name was Marla Melior.
Me (suave as always): Did you know your name means “better” in Latin?
Her: Yes! In fact, I have a podcast called Melior on Mondays.
Here is my table neighbor (also happened to be the keynote speaker), signing the only book I bought, which was one of hers.
She has written in a number of genres, including … the genre I am focusing on this year, Greco-fiction! Her book, The Curse of King Midas, blends the historical Midas (a king living in Phrygia in the late 700s BC), with the Midas of legend. I believe there are even gods involved. And there’s a map! No wonder I was undone.
Out of Babel Books 
Glad you had fun!
I do wonder why anybody would expect any other outcome though? Do you think it’s youthful optimism, lack of experience in this area or something else altogether? (like said authors mugging all the non-authors so said authors have more time to talk to each other? 😉 )
LikeLiked by 1 person
It might be youthful optimism on the part of the librarian organizing the event. After all, it is being held at a large, beautiful library, and some of these local authors have done events with the library before and have their pictures up on the b-boards. The librarian sent us a parking map of where we could park near the library in case their lot was full. Turned out not to be necessary. 🙂
The event also seemed to have a dual purpose. The panel and speaker were definitely topics that would interest authors, and most of the readers who attended are aspiring authors themselves, working on things but not published.
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s been my experience at these sorts of events. As a result, I don’t attend many.
LikeLiked by 1 person