Book Fairs, despite what many sellers will tell you, are prime marketing, buying and selling tools. In this age of virtual homogeneity, it is imperative to have a physical connection with potential customers and for potential customers connect you and your business with your inventory. Some material will sell itself especially if it is a reading copy priced low: the item is a known entity and a modest financial risk. But a vast amount of higher priced collectible items and non-fiction material need to be seen to not only be appreciated but also assessed as worthy of being purchased. And there is no better way to facilitate this than at a book fair.
Here are 10 good reasons to exhibit at a regional book fair:
1. Give your internet business a 'face.' Consumers respond to personalities and human contact and when you connect a real person with a business name and inventory you improve your chances of making a long-term connection.
2. Think Collateral Sales. Book fairs provide you an opportunity to sell related material that a customer did not plan to buy or even know existed. Collateral sales generally do not occur on the internet.
3. Book fairs provide us with new customers. When was the last time your inventory was seen by 2000 potential customers in person? Even if they don't buy at the fair, there is strong possibility for a follow-up sale if you have won buyers over with your personality, your knowledge, and the quality and breadth of your inventory.
4. Book fairs allow you to network with other booksellers. Other members of the professional trade can be great resources for information, sales trends, business activities, and new technologies. Other booksellers can also be some of your best customers. Let them see what you have to offer.
5. Regional book fairs, with between 50 and 100 exhibitors, offer the single best opportunity to replenish your stock with salable material or purchase specific titles on the want list of your best customers. Exhibitors will usually bring their most interesting, not necessarily their most expensive, material and some it may be out of field for them but right up your alley.
6. The book fair can be used to show your best customers your latest New Arrivals exclusively offered to at the show.
7. During the run of the book fair, the show will be the largest and best used and collectible bookstore in the host region, and what business person would not want to be a part of that focus on their stock and trade?
8. As an exhibitor, the book fair can inject important cash-flow into your otherwise lagging on-line activity.
9. Think long-term. As an exhibitor, your business will be listed in the show program which is often retained by serious attendees for future reference. You and your inventory will also be seen by your colleagues who may become future customers. They now have a face, a personality and an inventory that will set you apart from the herd of faceless, nameless sellers who prefer to keep their businesses anonymous and out of the spotlight. Book fairs will help you build a long-term reputation and presence in the trade.
10. Think of exhibiting at a book fair as an advertising opportunity. The fair is your 3-dimensional, life-size, living advertisement of the type of material you buy and sell. Many a bookseller has been offered a great collection by having their specialties seen at a book fair. I'm one of those.
There are several criteria by which every book fair should be judged: selling well, buying well, effective advertising, follow-up sales or purchases, and new customers. Remember the book business, like any other successful business, is about being proactive and taking the initiative. Don't just passively sit back and hope that good customers will find you; go out and put yourself where the good customers congregate and shop.
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