I wish something monumental had happened for me to share with you, but the truth is nothing did. The show model has worked well for years, offering educational seminars, brainstorming sessions, lost of authors milling, meeting and signing, along with fun nights of book trivia contests, complete with free beer and pizza. In between all that, the trade floor is open from browsing and buying at over 600 publisher displays.
The three day event ends with a relaxed two-hour reception with lots of food, drinks, generous books signings, and some door prizes. I won a bag full of stuff - t-shirts, window clings and some advertising what-nots from a small publisher.
The trade show floor is open from 9-4, which is long time to be walking, talking and carting swag, but you just do it. I took a most welcome break to spend an hour with a marketing professional who specializes in working with bookstores. She reviewed our blog and our Facebook page and was quite complimentary. Her biggest suggestion was that we should include more info and more pictures about our staff. We have a camera shy group here; I will try. We will see.
Every year a silent auction is held with the proceeds going to BINC, a foundation that offers financial help to any bookseller or bookstore owner that has experienced a financial challenge. Some publishers put their entire booths up for auction, while others offer smaller, more affordable bid items. With all the weather related devastation in our country this year, the donations were especially plentiful and impressive. I decided to bid on a sidelines display unit from Unemployed Philosophers, a company whose products we already carry. UP offered their largest display unit, fully stocked - a $5000.00 value. I figured we would be outbid early in the two hour open bidding time; still I took a chance, bidding more than I could afford, yet far below retail value. Each each time I checked, no one had topped our bid. Then 10 minutes before the auction ended, I say a new bid pasted over ours. My heart sunk. I knew I had already bid outside of my comfort zone, and I didn't have the intestinal fortitude to even glance at the bigger bid. In hindsight, that may have been a mistake.
The week before the show, someone approached me about organizing an author festival for our area. Sounds great. Although the plan is still in the discussion/incubation phase, I used the meet and greet portion of the show to toss out some test bubbles to a few writers just to determine interest. Quite promising. We'll see where this all goes. In the meantime, I'm happily reading books for book clubs 1 and 2 and looking forward to spending time with bookish friends.
Oh...here's something of note from the show and from my travels home through New Glarus and Madison - I saw very little cell phone use in restaurants, in shops, or by groups of people just standing around together. People were talking. I saw happy people smiling, and heard happy people laughing. Sooooo very refreshing!
Thanks for stopping by.
