We answer some of your burning questions about The Write Women Book Fest. When is the festival? Saturday, October 9th from Noon to 5 p.m. How much does it cost for attendees? It's FREE to attendees! Even when we are in-person it's free. There are no paywalls on workshops or online events. Where is the festival? This year it is a hybrid. The in-person portion will be held at Marietta House Museum in Glenn Dale, MD near D.C. The rest will be virtual. How much does it cost for vendors? It's just $20 to participate in 2021. We will always try to keep the price for participation accessible to new and establishing authors. Next year the price will go up assuming we will be back to regular on-site participation, which is more costly. However, we intend to keep virtual aspects of the festival to make it easy for people who can't make it to the D.C. area, or people who want to give or take workshops or sell books from home. Any author who cannot afford the $20 can request a reduced or waived fee. How long has this festival been around? This is the third year for The Write Women Book Fest. The first year was at Marietta House Museum in Prince George's County Maryland, not far from D.C. The second year was all virtual due to the pandemic. This year is a hybrid event! How did the festival start? It was an idea seeded at the Women Authors of Maryland private Facebook group, which is now The Write Women Network. Founder and author Heather Brooks felt there was a need for women-centered rather than genre-centered salons and book festivals. With the help of several friends and volunteers and the tireless efforts of the Outreach Coordinator, author Cardyn Brooks, we managed to have a smooth and better-than-expected launch in 2019. We want to keep growing this event each year with the idea of amplifying the work and creativity of women and marginalized voices and giving them opportunities to network and grow their platforms and visibility. How does it work? The 2021 festival will be a hybrid event, which means it will be partially in person at Marietta House Museum and partially virtual. You just go to the registration form, sign up, wait to be accepted and then pay $20 to participate. This year it doesn't matter if you are going to only participate virtually or come to the event space and participate, it's just $20 either way. Who should participate with this event and why? Any women authors and any women-owned or women-led organizations in the publishing industry should participate with this event. This includes writers, poets, illustrators, singer-songwriters, playwrights, publishers, cover designers, book marketers, podcasters, editors, beta readers, writing teachers, writing retreat businesses, and more! Book reviewers and book lovers of all types should participate with this event since it will connect them with authors and may give them access to ARCs, beta-reading and add opportunities to grow your platform. Once registration ends you'll be added to the online shop, have a feature blog post here, be mentioned on our socials, as well as authors will have a copy of their book added to the Prince George's Memorial Library System's circulating collection. If your book is in the Barnes & Nobel system it will be a part of a special display in October in the Bowie store. If I register, where does the money go? The money we collect goes to various expenses incurred by the event. We have received some small grants to cover signage, website fees, and to pay performers. We strive to pay performers and artists who do work with the event, such as musicians, Drag Queen and Firefighter storytimes. If you have a business that would like to partner with us to help grow this event please email [email protected]. If your customer base is largely women, this is a great opportunity to support a wonderful event. What should my sales expectations be? This event, like many other book festivals and fairs, needs to be viewed as an opportunity for networking and learning. A reality that is often not made clear, and perhaps is sometimes even obscured, is that it's rare to sell a lot of books at these events. Many of us have set up a table and sold two, three, or five books even at very large book events. One of the most important things you can do as a new or growing author is find places to sell a few books and network, practice meeting readers, participate with workshops and panels, and grow your platform. Now, there are events that are genre-specific, or have big fan-base might yield a lot of sales, but those festivals are often prohibitively expense or impossible to get accepted into for the new and growing, and indie authors. This is why we are trying so hard to keep the costs to the participating authors low. Nothing stings more than paying $250 for a space at a book festival and not even making enough to cover the parking fee, let alone lunch and the space fee! As we continue to grow this event, and presumably continue to have amazing featured and guest panelists, we will aim to keep this event accessible. It's a large part of our mission. GO HERE TO REGISTER!
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