Chicago Tribune's Printers Row Book Fair Photos

[cyn]

Last weekend, June 7, 8 I attended the Printers Row Book Fair in Chicago along with Frank Creed, Deb Kinnard, and Karina Fabian.

The event began on a high note with beautiful weather in the beautiful city of Chicago.



The book fair, sponsored by the Chicago Tribune, is located on 4 city blocks, Polk and Dearborn. About 100 000 avid readers attend this yearly event.



Our booth was shared by the Lost Genre Guild and the Catholic Writers Guild and was in a good location: at one of the entrances and protected from the afternoon sun.



Books displayed at the LGG/ TWCP booth:



Deb Kinnard in bright pink and Cyn in light pink:



Karina Fabian at her CWG table:





Frank Creed, Deb Kinnard and Karina Fabian:



Again, but this time, Deb is the victim of Frank's infamous bunny-earing . . . sadly, Karina required no prompting to do the same!



Saturday went pretty well, the storm held off until near the end of the event . . . then the bright Chicago day turned into . . .



Well, not exactly. The tornado hit south of town, but we were pummeled by the storm's peripheral effects and the wind kicked up and it poured.

Sunday, we (and virtually everyone else) packed up all their belongings -- at least all that weren't scattered to the wind -- and left early.

We had a marvelous time hanging out and meeting new people, talking about books to passersby (and eating Ghiradelli chocolates).

[cyn]

How about now? I had trouble figuring out the image option and posted before I should have!

[cathikin]

I can see them just fine. Saturday starred out so beautiful! Well, at least I know that you got to talk to a lot of people, and your display should stay ih their memories.

[Frank Creed]

Gotta love a photo-op.
I'm glad cyn didn't mention the elderly passer-by lady I bunny-eared.


Faith,
f

[cyn]

Oh yeah, almost forgot.

Could have used your influence Cathi . . . I caught Frank out in the middle of the road bunny-earring some nice woman he didn't even know

Unfortunately for all concerned, he looked like he was posing for a photo op and the woman turned around -- it was touch and go for a nano-second. I am not sure she noticed (I sure hope not!) but Frank straightened himself up right quick.

We tried to tell him, bunny-earring potential customers is not the way to draw favourable attention to our booth.

[gracebridges]

Cool stuff. So how did the public respond?

[cyn]

. . . how did the public respond?

The one thing that stood out to me about the book fair attendees was how polite everyone was. I've been to other large scale sales events where there are those folks who don't hold back in their expression of dislike or criticism. This "audience" was a joy to be around.

I'll get to the nitty-gritty before the description! Book sales were poor. I'd have to guess from looking around at other booths that the attraction for most fair-goers were the discounted books, both new and used.

Some other thoughts, please add in yours Frank, Karina and Deb:

Quite a number of people who initially expressed interest in the books politely smiled and shook their heads when learning that our books were written in a manner respectful to Christians -- in the same manner as Tolkien and C.S. Lewis wrote their fiction.

When I mentioned that Flashpoint's author was "right here" people became much more interested in his book. I don't think I sold a single FP, it was Frank that did so -- and it didn't take a hard sell (not his bag of tea).

Lots of comments were made about the covers. They appear to be really important, i.e./ customers do judge a book by its cover.

People were interested in where the authors were from.

For Stephen Rice's upcoming book, I printed up sample chapters and postcards. There was a huge interest in this book! Apparently there is a nice audience out there for super hero fiction

People needed to be encouraged to take freebies: postcards, books marks, magnets, etc.

A funny thing: Karina was manning the Catholic Writers Guild table. I spotted a nun walking by and called over to Karina: "nun: 2 o'clock." She called out "Sister!" and Sister Marie (or whoever) happily came to speak to Karina.

c

[Caprice]

I can see the pics now! Great photo-journalism, by the way. I'm glad at least Frank sold some books. Cyn said: "People needed to be encouraged to take freebies..." How funny, especially considering they were all so interested in the bargain bins! Did you do the thing with the shopping bags? How did that go?

The booth/table display is really nice. so even if you didn't sell any of my books (which I pretty much expected) I feel like at least I got a good exposure. C'est la vie.

[debkinnard]

I was disappointed by the "Christian turnoff factor" I saw. After a while, I stopped saying it, then wondered if I was right or wrong. However, anyone who picked up one of my books and scanned the back cover blurb probably figured it out rather rapidly...

It was fun to meet Cyn, Frank and Karina, and to dissect the state of Christian publishing in 2008. Meeting the readers was interesting...I tended to ask, "What do you like to read?" as a way to connect, and a gratifying number of people said, "Everything!"

[cyn]

Did you do the thing with the shopping bags? How did that go?

Yupper, we did. Bright lime green bags. I printed up labels for the front and back: TWCP and LGG with a tagline (can't recall exactly but something about . . . who said faith fiction couldn't be fun?).

Deb and Karina did most of the slapping labels on bags. I stuffed the bags with something from each book. We handed them out to anyone who would take one!

I figure that the largest draw to our tables were the bowl and basket of candy

Great photo-journalism, by the way

I have to admit that not all the photos were mine. The really good ones sans people? not mine. And the tornado pic? well, it sort of looked like that on t.v.

[cyn]

I tended to ask, "What do you like to read?" as a way to connect . . . "

Deb's idea was a highly successful way to connect with people and sometimes start a conversation -- or allow me and others to introduce all the books. It was a very non-threatening way to get people's attention.

[Frank Creed]

Folks didn't seem drawn past browsing and chatting. I don't think new books sold well at the event--as Cyn said, the 50% off booths were packed. I think the Sears Tower on Flashpoint's cover is why people picked it up to read the back cover.

I think we generated some future Web sales from those who took one of our LGG lime-green tote bags.

One lady curtsied at me after learning I was Flashpoint's author! She said she'd seen it everywhere--I presume she meant the Web--and bought a copy.

Faith,
f

[cathikin]

Cool beans! A curtsey? AND a sale. Good combination.