Five Years of Selling Indie Books at Conference
Publishing thoughts
Ebony McKenna
8/31/20262 min read
Five years in a row selling Indie Books at the annual RWAus conference has provided a lot of data and excellent "vibes".
Catherine Bilson has done this for six years in a row because the 2021 conference was on her home turf, while Victorians and NSW-ers were in our last lockdown and I couldn't get there.
What sells well:
Non-fiction.
Especially non-fiction by anyone presenting a workshop. Especially especially non-fiction on the same topic as people presenting a workshop.
These are gold.
Next year at conference, if you're presenting a workshop, give serious thought to creating a print book related to that workshop. You're making a presentation anyway, so expand it into book form.
Self-help author guides and other non-fiction sells very well, even if you're not presenting. I have updated my editing book because of this, and sold 4 copies at Darwin. Plus the "Library" book which shows authors, step by step, how to get their books into Libraries and earn Lending Rights. That one sold 5 copies and I didn't have to take any unsold copies home.
What also sells:
Award winning fiction or titles that are up for awards.
Cath and I have shiny tags that we stick on books that have either finalled in or won awards before. If you're a finalist in any of the RuBY awards at that conference, bring copies to sell at the table. Sunday is the biggest selling day, and we sold out of the RuBY winners.
General observations:
Covers must deliver. You're selling to fellow authors, as opposed to readers, so this is not a natural bookselling environment. It's even tougher. You're selling to writers at all stages of their career and these writers have EXPECTATIONS of the genre. Your cover needs to meet those expectations.
Gloss covers get scuffed more easily. Wrap them in t-shirts in your luggage so they don't sit on the table looking like cast-offs.
Too much choice leads to no choice. I would suggest five titles maximum for each author at the Indie table. Many established authors have a massive backlist, but save that (and spare your back) by whittling it down.
Bring the first book in your favourite series to get readers started.
Bring your latest publication.
Bring a book that's won or finalled in an award.
Bring two more titles that are your favourites.
It's hard having to choose a favourite child, but there is research to back this up. Aside from my observations over five years, there is good research about choice overload, or 'decision paralysis' if there are too many options with one 'brand' (ie, one author).
10 copies max. For the past five years, no single author has ever sold 10 copies of a fiction title. The anthologies are different because there are multiple authors in those, and the authors whose stories are in them often buy a few copies each.