An Attempt at an #AprilFeelsDay Recap
I realize I'm not the most reliable re-capper here. I spent all of April Feels Day sitting in our little sale booth, scrambling for change and listing the books we were selling. Because guys, we sold a LOT.
#AprilFeelsDay was evil genius/awesome mastermind Mina Esguerra's idea. What we wanted was to have one day for every romance reader and writer to come together, say hi to each other, buy books and fangirl over actors reading book excerpts live. We had our venue (hello and thank you, Pegi Waffles!), we had waffles and we spread our books out.
We weren't ready for the reaction, though!
I was across the street for the #romanceclass2016 face-to-face class on steamy reads and heat levels when Pegi Waffles called in a slight panic, because it was only noon and the place was already filling up. We went across the street and started setting up, and as soon as we did, I got lost in a storm of book selling!
What I loved about this table was that there were so many titles we didn't know how to display them all. A lot of authors showed up with newly minted copies of their new stories. Six delos Reyes' Beginner's Guide was down to one copy, Chi Yu Rodriguez's The Bye Bye Bouquet sold out, and Agay Llanera's Choco Chip Hips had to be hidden in her bag like contraband because copies were so in demand! I love how excited everyone was, and everyone came out of the event with more than one copy in their hands.
Everyone gets a free book at the entrance (thank you Visprint, Anvil, Summit and local indie authors!), so this means that every participant bought at least one book from our booth. That's nearly seventy people, buying more than one book! I couldn't do the math fast enough, but this was amazing!
The heat rose in the room when the readings started. As you can see the venue was packed, and everyone was eagerly anticipating the readings (and I do mean EAGERLY). I sat away from the view of the actors but seeing the audience reactions alone was enough to make me laugh along. We're STILL squee-ing, by the way.
This is Rachel and that's Jef. Say hi! (Hiiiiii Jeffffff)
I think the other authors (check them out here and here!) would have more detailed recaps and vids of the readings, but suffice to say, it was a fun way to spend Sunday afternoon. We gained a lot of insights and new ideas for Things we can do in the not too distant future, but the main takeaway was to KEEP WRITING! As many books as we have now, there are still so many stories to tell, and we can't wait to find new ways to share them!
So if you're looking for an excuse to write? This is it. We can't wait to read your book. :)