Book Signing Event Tips

Making sure you have people show up to a book signing event is one thing, but what about what you do to prepare for the actual event itself? What do you need to have on hand and how do you just look like a pro for your first and future book signings? If you're wondering what you need and where to buy it, then this video is for you. Hey there. I'm Julie the Book Broad, Founder of Book Launchers, a professional self publishing services team and I'm also a multi book author. Now that we're seeing more people face to face again, the opportunity for book signings is much more frequent. And I realized the other day we talked about getting events set up at your local library for example, or having events for your book launch, but we have not yet talked about the finer details like what the heck do you need to have to have a successful and professional appearing book signing? Now for me you really only need to invest in these materials if you're planning on doing more than one event or you're doing one that is fairly large. If you're just doing a one off signing event to launch your book and you really don't think you're going to do anymore, it's probably not worth investing in a bunch of things because at that event you're going to be lucky to sell 20 books. And investing in a bunch of materials won't change the number of books you sell. Just making yourself look fancy and professional. However, if you're going to be speaking at events and getting a table at the back of the room or on an event floor, which is an amazing way to build your platform and sell books and you think you're going to do a few events in person throughout the next year or two. Absolutely invest a few hundred dollars in looking like a pro. So grab a pen. I'll wait a second because here's what you're going to need. Number one get yourself two black Sharpies for signing those books. Fine point or whatever you prefer. You can use whatever kind you pen you want, but a Sharpie just is official. Number two Get a sign up sheet for your newsletter. Do this old school, put up a sign and offer your reader magnet and then have a sheet of paper with a spot for a name and an email address. You also want to note that they're going to get your newsletter when they sign. I've tried QR codes, I've tried texting systems, I've tried so many ways for people to connect with me and get on my newsletter list and nothing works as well as Just getting them to pull out the pen and write it down. The QR code, in fact, gave me the worst results. Here's what I suspect happens, because this is what I do. I go to a booth, I get the QR code on my phone, I open up the page and I'm talking to somebody. So I don't be sitting there typing. It's rude. And then I walk away and I start a new conversation. And then when I get home, my husband looks at my phone and goes, why do you have 45 web browsers open? So we delete them, we close them, and then I never sign up for whatever that reader magnet was. This probably happens for people too. So old school pen, piece of paper, a little sign in a plastic display stand. You can see an example of it on this picture right here. That's all you need. And people will put their name and email address on there to download your freebie and get on your newsletter. Okay, so back to the list. Took a little detour there. Two Sharpie black pens, a signup sheet. You're going to need an 8 by 11 sign to promote your reader magnet. And get that plastic display thing to put it in so that it stands there and looks nice. You're going to want to have that sign up sheet, have a piece of paper that says name, email and what they're signing up for. You want pens for people to use to sign up and have lots because some people take them. You don't have to have this, but I recommend having some sort of a display shelf or some way to stand the books up so the COVID is facing out. This can be a cheap magazine stand or some other fancier bookstand. I actually like the clear plastic ones that you see in the picture because they allow for the full front cover to be visible like you see in the picture. But you can still stack multiple books. Which brings me to the next thing. You need your books. Depending on the event, you should have at least 20 books on hand or and a QR code that takes them to the universal link to buy the ebook and ideally a QR code for buying the audio version that you hopefully have for your book as well. It's also a great idea to have your media kit or if you have a speaker one sheet or a sales sheet for your book, have those on hand. Because if somebody comes by and wants to know if you give talks or you're willing to do a podcast interview or if you'd like to have your book listed in the local library, having these materials on hand can lead to some pretty awesome opportunities and it just makes you look that much more professional if you don't have any of those things. Well obviously you're not working with book launchers because we create all of those for you but have a business card with your contact information which has the title of your book and a few other details like your website. So all that is the bare minimum that you should have for a professional book signing. Now the next few items are what I would call bonus material. Get a table cover. I would go with black because I can't tell you how many coffee stains are on our white one. I'm constantly strategically placing books to hide the coffee stains because people come up to the table, put their coffee down when they come to talk to you and leave and leave a mark and it doesn't come out. If my next one is white. I'm going to hand out noboringbook coasters for swag to get people to put their drinks down on the coaster. Your table cover doesn't have to be branded, but when you do events at libraries and bookstores they often give you an ugly fold up table. So having something to cover that up with just makes it look that much nicer. You can buy these at Michael's or local craft store or an event store or for pretty low price. Or you can order a branded one from Vistaprint or a lot of the other places that I will list in a second that do banners. If you do a branded one, make sure it has your website on it. The next thing that is a nice to have is a stand up vertical banner. You don't need a big banner like you see in my book Launcher's booth Picture. A vertical banner or even a small table banner will be enough. There are so many places to get banners and Most are under $100. You'll likely need to bring a design to the table though. So what I would recommend is decide where you're going to buy from, get their specs for what you need to upload and then go to Upwork or Fiverr or Guru and hire a graphics designer to create the banner for you. Absolutely. Include your book cover. If you've won any awards, include those. If you have a great blurb or an endorsement from somebody, put that on there. And of course the formats and where people can buy it. Then go ahead and place the order from the designer. Now make sure you're doing all this at least 60 days before your event to give yourself lots of time to get it shipped to you. Fix any issues that may be in place and all that stuff. I use booth pop for all my banner needs. I just have really enjoyed working with them and they have a graphic designer that will work with you so you don't necessarily have to hire that piece out. They're a little pricier than Vistaprint and ultimately Vistaprint might be the best place if you're watching because they do a 50% off sale twice a year. So if you hang on, you can get all your book promotion items on sale. Now there's other banner places that other authors recommend, like 48 Hour Print. You might find a local print shop location that can help you fast. Signs has a lot of locations around the US and I know in Las Vegas there are a lot of businesses who recommend them. Finally, if you want to, you can have swag to give away. You can have those things like postcards, pens, bookmarks, or even fancier things like journals or water bottles or T shirts to give away. It's not necessary, but if you have a business behind your book, it can be good exposure. Now speaking of swagger, do you want to know how you can win some of our fabulous NoboringBooks swag? Well, it's really simple. Get on our newsletter to join one of our monthly Deep Dive trainings. So all you have to do is go to book launchers.com gameplan to download a guide on marketing your book and then you're going to get on our newsletter list. Or you can simply comment on the day a video is released and you'll be entered to win. It's super easy. We give away a lot of swag and if you comment on a regular basis, you'll become one of my besties like Deborah Lloyd, Linda K. Lee, Rachel Robertson, Mike Herd, Bill Miller and Cat Lind. Thank you so much for your likes, comments and shares. Oh, and speaking of best friends, one final thing I like to bring to my book signings when I can a friend. It's so great to have someone there to support you, bring you a drink if you're busy, man your table when you have to pee, and keep you company if it's quiet. Now you're probably wondering how you land an event to do a book signing. Well, this video talks about getting your event booked at a local library and that should get you started. And this video right here will help you get your media kit looking polished and professional for sharing with folks that come by your table. Both videos are pretty much must watch if you're doing events, so I'll see you there.