After much loss of sleep and running around the entire DC metro area in two days - the day of the Capital Bookfest finally arrived. And it was raining! And cold! But it's okay - I've been to London and Belgium and learned first hand that you cannot let the weather stop your plans. In Europe if you let that be the case you will spend most of your days indoors. The thing is Black girls and rain don't mix. It's a hair thing. But I learned quick that if I was going to have wonderful, liberating experiences I had to get over the idea that a perfect day means perfect weather.

So plenty of umbrellas later, my sister Lachana, play cousin Mika, Courtney, Kourtney, Andre and JJ arrived at the Capital Bookfest carrying boxes of books, postcards, cookies and ornaments. We set up quick and we were ready for business - right - not quite. Cutting to the chase - it's hard to sell books in a place where there are a lot of people sitting around trying to do the same thing - sell books. All of us have the same pitch - "Hey you - come buy my book - it's better than all other books." And that in itself is contradicting because if your book is better than all other books why are you outside in the cold rain - under a plastic tent trying to sell a book when all the "really good" books are inside of Border's book store?

The thing is I realized a long time ago that book fairs wouldn't be my thing - long before I wrote a book I was an avid visitor of book fairs and I never purchased any of the books. The books in that set up just never seemed good enough or worth my hard earn money. Again this is contridicting because the same book in another setup could get my attention. And even Mika broke down the numbers for me - 40% of the people will buy books (damn, Mika that's a little pessimistic) and out of that 10% are only looking for a certain kind of book (in this case at this festival that would be children books) - subtract those numbers from those numbers and factor in the fact that you are sharing the attention of the potential buyers with fifty-leven other authors. And yes I knew this way before I wrote a book when I use to say if I write a book - best believe you won't catch me at a book festival. So why am I here?

Because I forgot. No, I didn't forget. I'm here because I wrote a book and it IS better than all the other books and surely when the people see me and my book they will see that - right? Wrong!! Okay - okay so I got here at 10 and then it was noon and I still haven't sold a book. But I gave away a lot of cookies and brownies and treats all packaged in bags touting my book cover. And Mika was getting desperate - "Let's sell the cookies!" She exclaimed. Seeing the desperation in her eyes it was up to me to remain calm and focused, "No, Mika we will not sell the cookies and the table cloth and my $400 purse for 60 bucks." I looked around and saw exactly what I was suppose to see (I did my prayers that morning) - more than selling a book - this day was about opportunity and possibility. I knew that no matter what I said to people they already knew if they were interested in my book or not. It's poetry - there is no story line - no amazingly clever theme pulling it together no nothing. I sent out my prayer to the universe to let my stand attract those who WANTED to buy my book. Then I let it go and decided to have fun. And guess what? I made my first sale around 1 pm to the Thompkin family - why because their son Elijah writes poetry but they felt that the whole family would enjoy the book. Yeaaaaa. And the rest of the day went like that - I sold more and more books (okay Chana and Mika sold more and more books) as I walked around and talked with other vendors and some of my more successful writer friends (their books were inside of the store). And the interesting thing is I had people who found me to sign my book for them - wow!

And I got my stalk on and amazingly missed a lot of people I set out to stalk. Wil Haygood made it easy for me - he visited me at my booth - I was able to catch Marita Golden on her panel but I talked to her when she caught up with me at the All Black Girls Ain't Got Rhythm experience (my table was an experience - well at least to me). And the soon to be Def Poet Alum Lamont Carey and his beautiful fiance Libra checked me out too. Special shout out to Veronica Grayson and Karen Bowdling and Judine Slaughter. I checked out Karyn Langhorne and Lori Bryant Woolridge and Edward P. Jones in their areas doing their thing. Someway somehow I missed my friend Celeste Norfleet, Omar Tyree, Michelle Singletary, Bern Nadette Stanis, and Lucille Clifton. I mean I ran all around that dang on Borders looking for Ms. Clifton.

The thing was at times the selling got good to me and time slipped away and I forgot about my main objective of being a professional stalk-a-writer broad type chick. So I missed out on some of my opportunities to take my self-portrait ghetto snap shot pictures.

Oh and I was on a panel that went really really well. We talked about our books and self-publishing and all that great stuff. Tee C. Royal (founder and president of Raw Sistaz book club) was the moderator and she was really nice - she had great energy. And she even got my book and complimented my cover art. Thanks sista-friend!

My girl, Gwen - straight in from Nevada - came to help me out at my booth oh and did I mention that my sister and Mika drove in from North Cakalakie after working all day - driving there from Virginia and then to Maryland from there - getting to my house at 8 in the morning (yes they drove all night). And shout out to Lisel of A Cake Affair for putting in hard and long hours baking up brownies, gooey cake and an assortment of cookies for the All Black Girls Ain't Got Rhythm experience. And to Dionne Green for the bomb purse that sat on my table because it was too fabulous to sit on the wet ground. That purse pulled in people when my book did not - and because of it my guestbook was over-flowing

So now the question remains - will I do a book festival again - a resounding YES!!! I made some great contacts - connects and possible future sales (I'm talking about organization type sales). I think the networking oppurtunities and audience to promote to is priceless.

What would I do different? Cut my cost. Because bigger sale numbers aren't gaurenteed - I would cut my expenses by not spending much on promotional material. But then again since I loved my material I would cut my expenses by finding sponsors. Another idea is to either share a table with 1 other author or time share a table (half the time to one author - or 2 hours or so spread to several authors). Or shoot - get a sponsor to cover everything. Have other merchandise. Since my collection is poetry it would do well to make other items with my poetry - even laminated sheets with one poem a piece for those who may not want the entire book (which I don't see why they wouldn't) - also since the kid market was a huge market at this book festival - Having kid merchandise is a must for the next festival.

I would also say to keep in mind that while hard sales are nice - making a connection to the target audience and keying in on other oppurtunities is the bigger picture. And have fun!!!!