Chapter 20
The day of our first Arts & Crafts Fair arrived.
It was late October and the event was outdoors. Since we had signed up at the last minute, we were delegated to an'overflow' site. It turned out to be several miles from the actual event.
We were directed to a patch of grass between a hot dog stand and a table full of garage sale crap.
We set up our booth and waited anxiously for the flood of fans who would buy my book.
Someone must have given them bad directions, because no one came.
The few people who dropped by for a hot dog walked by our booth and never even looked in our direction.
We sat there four hours, froze our butts off and didn't sell a single book.
Not a very auspicious start.
Our next event was at the Harrisonville, Cass County Public Library. I had emailed and sent postcards to every old classmate that I could find. The library had posted a book-signing notice on the door and the local newspaper had run an announcement for us.
This was bound to be a success.
On the night of the event, I was thrilled when about a dozen old classmates showed up. Each bought a book and we had a great class reunion.
But not another single soul other than my old friends came.
I learned a valuable lesson. If people don't know you or you're not a celebrity, they just don't care.
Our next event was another Christmas Craft Fair. This one was inside and we had a more captive audience.
We noticed right away that people weren't drawn to our booth even though it was decorated to the hilt.
It was difficult to ignore our 12 x 18 poster advertising 'Lady Justice Takes A C.R.A.P.'and if that didn't get your attention a second poster admonishing
"Give Someone C.R.A.P. for Christmas", was hard to ignore.
We soon discovered that nothing was going to happen unless we made it happen, so we stood at our table and spoke to anyone who even glanced in our direction.
We found that once we got their attention, and our infectious personalities kicked in, most would listen to the story of "Lady Justice'.
We also found that if we could engage them in conversation, about 60% of them would buy a book.
We sold 37 copies that day --- a victory!
Our next event was in the library of our small town of Osceola, Mo, population 835.
Again, we posted notices all over town and the local paper had run ads for two consecutive weeks. We even sponsored a promotion for the local Food Bank; "Bring in a can of food and receive a 10% discount".
Four families showed up, all were close friends. No one else cared.
The rest of our events at craft fairs went much the same as the second one. Once we figured out how to attract the shoppers, we could sell the book.
We sold books at our ten events, but we could tell right away that if 'Lady Justice was going to be a best seller, it was going to take more than craft fairs.
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