How to do a booksigning -- or smile, smile, smile no matter what

I recently held my first book signing for This Bird Flew Away at an independent bookstore here in the Charlotte Harbor area.

Everything was ready: twenty copies of the book, cards, giveaway bookmarks, a poster sized image of the book cover complete with cardboard stand, the video trailer primed on my lap-top, the lap-top fully charged, my favorite pen… nothing left to chance.

Or so I thought.

I’m going to assume you don’t have a publicity agent doing all these things for you. Like me, you’re a penurious promoter and it’s DIY all the way down the line.

As always when faced with a new venture, I spent hours researching all the available how-to articles out there. Most seemed written for established authors with publicists, a ready-made following and entry into the large book-chains. (As though they’d need a how-to.) Many were clearly written by someone who had never, ever done this, themselves. (Don’t you just love content articles on subjects the writer knows nothing about?)

Nowhere did I find the kind of article I needed: How to arrange a book signing and where you should hold one, when you’re a newly published author without a recognizable name, entirely on your own and with little to no budget, and once you’ve done so, how to pull it off. 

Recognizing a gap in the article market, I decided to fill it.

For the article, click here.

I hope you enjoy my slightly tongue in cheek look at book signings.

Yours sincerely,

Lynda