Books & Brews: A Fantastic Event

On Saturday March 1, I vended at the Books & Brews event at Storybook Brewing in Colorado Springs.

Y’all, I’m going to be honest, I did not have high hopes for this event. I’ve tried several times to sell books at comic cons in Colorado Springs, and have uniformly been disappointed at the results. The main reason is that it is an area where cosplay is very popular. Cosplayers, bless their hearts, don’t have any money for books. And generally, they prefer video as the source for their entertainment. Now, I don’t have a problem with that at all, but I am in the business of selling books, so I try to avoid audiences that typically don’t buy them.

I had good recommendations from some friends who’d done Books & Brews previously. I thought maybe I would give it a shot. It didn’t have a high table fee, so I wouldn’t have to sell a whole lot of books to break even. It was a short event, only three and a half hours, with an hour and a half drive each way tacked on (during which I could listen to an audiobook). Y’all, I made table in the first 25 minutes, and proceeded to sell a whole bunch more books. Eighteen in all, over three and a half hours. I sold out of five titles. That’s a phenomenal event!  This is an audience who wants books, and who buys books!

The best news is that the management of Storybook Brewing is planning to do this event four times a year. Now, that’s more frequent than I would want to do it, because market saturation is always a concern. Twice a year though? Sign me up!

I’ll let you know when I’ll be back down to Storybook Brewing!