
FESTIVALS
Selling books is a challenge, in part because readers are hard to
find. Even publishers have to work hard to market books, so for an individual
writer it becomes near impossible, unless of course they are already well known,
e.g., Tom Hanks, Britney Spears.
To market my books I’ve been going to festivals with some success,
depending on the festival. Yesterday I went to Augusta to check out the Fat Tuesday
Food & Music Festival as a possible venue.
A description of the festival was tantalizing: it was to “bring a
taste of New Orleans to Augusta.” My sister Nila and I waited 30 minutes to pay
the $10 entry fee, we spent about 15 minutes checking it out.
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My sidekick and sister Nila |
I should have taken a hint about the “festival” when a person selling
gutters approached me at the entry. On surveying the vendors, instead of jambalaya,
beignets, or gumbo, we saw the usual tacos, lemonade, funnel cake, and kettle
corn. There were few other vendors selling things such as soaps and jewelry. It
didn’t have the sort of traffic to sell books, or much of anything else.
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I wasn't looking for lemonade... |
In the past, book festivals in our area were more successful, at
least in the sense that they were big events that pulled traffic from a large
area. The three-day South Carolina Book Festival held in Columbia closed down
in 2015 after 19 years. Book “Em NC, held at Robeson, and Lowcountry Arts &
Literary Festival have closed.
What we have now are smaller festivals that are hanging on despite
low traffic. Several that have returned annually for several years are the Indie
Author at Aiken, SC, Author Showcase at the Richland Library, and Authors for
Literacy at the Lexington library. A more intimate gathering that features
authors is Readers & Writers held at a local restaurant.
At a time when selling books has become as productive as digging
for gold, festivals in SC are multiplying like rabbits. Flower festivals
(azalea, iris), food (crawfish, peach, pimento cheese, shrimp, BBQ,
strawberry, rice festivals), cultural (Celtic, Cajun, Italian, Swamp, Greek, Irish,
hippie festivals); music (jazz, bluegrass, boogie), which is but a sampling. A list
can be found here:
https://festivalguidesandreviews.com/south-carolina-festivals/