Sold Out.
Our first event.
7/20/20232 min read
Last weekend the Columbus Metropolitan Library celebrated their 150th anniversary with a book festival that was larger than any of us could have anticipated. No one, perhaps, was as surprised as we were.
We have both been dreaming of being professional authors for as long as we can remember, long before we were a couple. Getting our physical beta-reader copies was an exciting first step. Next, we self-published and that was so rewarding. We were thrilled to have sold thirty copies in a year.
And then we applied to our first event, to -the- book event of the year in our city. Not only did we apply… we got in.
We bought tablecloths and bookshelves, business cards and signs. We went to other events and studied booths, figured out what looked professional and what didn’t. We researched how many books to bring and ordered them. We bought art prints.
Friday came and we found our booth to set things up. And there it was: our names on a sign. Our daughter squealed in excitement at the sight of it. It was becoming very real.
When Saturday morning rolled around, we were on our way up to the park. I looked to Nat, curious about how many books we would need to sell to feel accomplished. For me, it was a single book. If we could bring in a single person, intrigue one reader, it would mean the world to me. Nat was hoping to sell ten books over the weekend, half of the optimistic twenty we brought.
Forty-five minutes into the festival being officially opened and we had sold three books.
An hour and a half into it and we had sold ten books. We had met Nat’s goal before noon of the first day.
Three hours in and we were sold out.
Sold out.
We were speechless. We weren’t even sure what to do. Our family and friends scrambled to give up their copies of the books for us to sell to new readers. We wrote down orders. We made a hurried sign to link people to our book online.
We missed sales but we were so so fulfilled. We were in awe. We felt successful. We felt, we feel, like professional authors.
We continued through the weekend, out of books, but making friends, making connections, and relishing in all that we were learning. And we truly did learn so much.
Grateful cannot even begin to describe how we feel now, a few days later, replaying it all over again. We were honored to be included by the library. We are thankful to our friends and family for all of the help they provided, their investments in us and their faith in us. We are thankful to our fellow exhibitors for being so warm and inviting, so helpful and kind.
But more than anything, we’re grateful to our customers, to the people we met and talked to about our story.
You each played a huge part in furthering our dreams and we couldn’t do this without you.