Last night during The Writers Lounge Blog Talk Radio show, we had a little discussion about book signings, book festivals and other bookish events.

The question started out as something else and evolved into us chatting about the positives and negatives of doing these. One of the biggest negatives was not being able to afford them.

I’ve only been around this industry for a year and a half, so I really don’t have a lot of experience in this area. I’ve had a book signing at my house which was a huge hit. You can read about it here. 

Last year, I participated in the Baltimore Book Festival and met so many readers and a few very cool authors. It was a long day and I pretty much broke even but all in all, the experience was wonderful.

I think what I’m getting at here is I’d like to know what your experience has been at trade shows and book signing events and such.  I always see a lot of my author friends; especially the paranormal and romance fiction genre, packing their bags and heading off all over the place to book shows and events.

I don’t know of or think there are any for my genre (historical / paranormal fiction) and although I have written paranormal fiction, it has not been in the paranormal romance genre.

Yes, I won a super fantastic and amazing award for writing paranormal fiction but I just don’t feel like I currently fit in anywhere but mixed local festivals and personal book signings. Not that I’m complaining because those are pretty sweet too.  

Ladies and gentlemen we’ve now reached the question portion of this blog:

1. Have you done any bookish events and if so, what was your experience like?
2. Would you do one, if you haven’t already?
3. What are your biggest concerns about taking part in one?

Thanks in advance for participating.