The decision to participate as a vendor at any event for any business—and especially for authors and artists—depends on the vendor’s focus: marketing or profit. For many authors, the focus is marketing because it’s difficult, if not impossible, to earn sufficient revenue covering:
- Vendor registration fees
- Travel expenses (fuel, mileage, meals)
- Hotel accommodations
- Inventory
- Time.
Let’s plug in some general but realistic numbers:
- Vendor registration fees: For book/author-oriented events, author registration fees aren’t cheap. Most I’ve seen range from $150 to $350 per author, which includes one table and one or two chairs. So, I’ll split the difference on the lower side at $200.
- Travel expenses: At the current IRS reimbursement rate of 70¢ per mile, a round trip of 100 miles is worth $70. Let’s be kind to the author’s wallet and allow a per diem for meals at $25 per day.
- Hotel accommodations: Let’s be conservative and allot a base room rate of $100 per night for an economy chain hotel.
- Inventory: Depending on the number of books ordered, this varies. Regardless, even at wholesale, carrying sufficient inventory requires an outlay of funds. Let’s allot $7 per book for production and shipping and assume the author will bring 50 books. So, the author’s cost here is $350.
- Time: This is the big variable, because how much is your time worth? Even if an author or artist is generous with himself and calculates the value of his time at minimum wage ($7.25/hour federal), that still works out to $58 for an 8-hour day of working the table.
Here’s our total: $200 + $70 + $25 + $350 + $58 = $703.
If I’m selling books at an average price of $12 each, then I’d have to sell 60 books to break even. But if I only bring 50 books, then something’s got to give. Either the author absorbs that cost or the author shifts the focus of participation from profit to marketing.
The real value of event participation isn’t in the money an author makes; it’s in the marketing. An author who uses that time to interact with prospective readers and current readers establishes a personal connection with them. Building rapport is a huge aspect of effective marketing because people prefer to buy from people whom they like. This requires a degree of salesmanship and amiability that the typically introverted author may find uncomfortable.
I’m a diehard introvert, but early exposure and training in retail sales as a teenager forced me to learn how to smile and approach strangers with a friendly hello and to invite conversation with them. I’ve made a lot of sales simply because I enacted the first rule of marketing: acknowledge the prospective customer.
What I haven’t done and should do is to track my sales to see if there’s an uptick after an event. That’s one way to determine whether the marketing effort worked as intended.
Regardless, although I hope to recoup my expenses at every event, it doesn’t always happen. Actually, if I count the value of my time—and I value my time above federal minimum wage—then it never happens. Therefore, I adjust the variables. When my friend drives, I get to eliminate mileage costs from the total. I simply don’t factor in the value of my time. I sell merchandise other than books and hope my painting sell, too, to offset the costs. I don’t count the expense of tablecloths, tables, folding chairs, signage, business cards, and the other accoutrements necessary for a vendor’s stall.
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