Selling Books at Printers Row Chicago

You get there early and no one is in your tent yet. You unload your books williamhazelgrove.com and position them on the table along with your bookmarks, water, pad, money for change. Other people arrive. The temperature will soon be in the nineties and your tent is in the middle of Dearborn Street. This is one of the few times you are shoulder to shoulder with other authors selling books. This is good and bad. You are all after the same customers and it is a bit of  an open market with everyone pitching. Nine O'clock rolls around and the first people pass by.

Your books are hardcovers but this doesn't matter. People will pay 30.00 for a book they want. The  man across the street is selling everything for three bucks. You begin to sweat and now you are pushing up against the other authors because suddenly the tent is full. It is already hot, heat rash hot, and the water is not enough. The heat is an enemy that zaps your energy and you need every bit of it to pitch your book over and over and over.  This will go on for two days.

You would like to think you are beyond Printers Row. That your books should magically sell themselves and there are a lot of self published authors there. Your books are more expensive with a big publisher who will not discount. But this is the Midwest Mecca for books and it is long hot and grueling and you fall into bed exhausted and dehydrated at the end of the day. Your books sell out twice and at the end you take home a lot less books than you came with.

You wake on Monday wondering where the weekend went and then you remember, Printers Row. You will be there again next year with another book.

Forging A President How the Wild West Created Teddy Roosevelt

Printers Row Author Show

You get there and you are incognito. Wander Wander Wander. Who else is there you know. Absolutely no one. Signing in one hour. Make the most of your one hour. So many books and so many authors. How the hell can anyone sell anything? The thriller authors seem very organized. They have their palm cards and their publicist there. They wear a suit. They look like their books...clean, cheap, businesslike, rich. But of course they are not rich or they would not be at printers row hawking their books. It is the OK corral of the networking author and it is daunting.

A hotdog. A coke. You do bash into somebody you know and they offer you a beer in the poets tent. Salvation. Then you see someone you asked to blurb your book. He says he will do it from his table. Better. And now your hour is ticking down and you are hanging around your tent. This is where you will sit like a prisoner behind your books. This is where the authors who precede you are sitting with the look of a bored toll booth attendant. Almost done.

And then they are packing up and it is now or never. You walk around the table and are accosted by authors who think you are a book buyer never suspecting you are one of their own. You circle the tent and pop out the other side and now the table is clear and it is your turn. You pull the books out of your backpack and slink down. A woman to your right introduces herself. She is a radio personality and is immediately mobbed. You turn to the guy to your right who has his people talking to him. You are the only one who has no fans.

You look at your watch. Sigh. One hour and fifty five minutes to go. You sell a couple books and chat with the radio personality woman. She is on the backside of her career in radio and looking for publishing as salvation. The dude on the other side has a book about Camps. You talk between then and pass the time and exchange cards and pitch each other on future projects and then it is time to go. You have sold maybe half the books you bought. You are pitched out and networked out. But you did it.

You participated in the Printers Row Author Show and there is satisfaction in that. Humility is a badge after all.

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