 We have this updated graphic for all of the currently registered authors! Some have only just gotten their invoices today. Everybody, please pay your invoice or let me know you are backing out so I can open up your space to another author. Thanks so much.
Where we are right now:
Heather & Cardyn
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Invoices are on their way! There was a bit of a delay so I could allow some extra time to assemble certain groups, but everybody should see an invoice by tomorrow night.
Pretty soon social media profiles will begin going up as well and then the website will be filled in for the 2025 page! Very excited! It looks like we're going to have a few more tables open up. I try to be conservative when I first do registration so we don't over-extend ourselves, which can cause lots of sticky issues. I'd rather get things all smooth and make sure we have room, then add a few folks. Cardyn and I are very much looking forward to seeing you! If you submitted your 2025 vendor registration form and forgot to copy the payment link for your deposit, here they are. Please choose the correct one because they have inventory limits set based on the space type. If you choose a full table your remaining balance this July will be $250 and if you are a half table, your remaining balance this July will be $99. The extra after party tickets have to be purchased with a separate link, sorry if that's inconvenient. FULL TABLE DEPOSIT LINK: https://square.link/u/hW9zgtph HALF TABLE DEPOSIT LINK: https://square.link/u/d9FINgtH EXTRA AFTER PARTY TICKETS: https://square.link/u/G6tlHnzp AUTHOR VIRTUAL LISTING SPONSORSHIP: https://square.link/u/QgwpFPY5 PUBLISHING PROFESSIONAL VIRTUAL LISTING SPONSORHSIP: https://square.link/u/dQeGRz1R WHY WE CHOSE THE COMFORT INN IN BOWIE
FAQs & INFO
Is the library participating this year? Is Bowie Barnes & Noble doing a display? How do I know what the latest information for the book fest is? We haven't finalized any of these details yet. We keep you informed here on the vendor blog: Should I get half a table or a full table? If you have lots of books OR need an assistant, you will need a full table. Half tables are a little cozy, so don't bring too many large display pieces. Why isn't a half table half the cost of a full table? Each author that is added to the event creates administrative and organizational work as well as supply expenses because we treat all of our authors like superstars. Everybody gets the same effort from us. What if I have a group or organization that has multiple authors? We would love to have you! We always set aside a few tables for this and the maximum number of authors at the table is five. Please email Heather if you need to discuss this option at [email protected] Can I share a table with an author friend? Yes. We ask in registration who you would like to be paired up with if you have a friend you want to table with. However, you need to register and pay individually and leave each other's names in the appropriate section of the registration form. How many books should I bring and which ones? We can't advise you on this because there are too many variables, but we can give you some guidelines to help you figure it out. We cannot guarantee book sales. We do our best to make a great environment for you to make book sales and build a fanbase. — If you already have a decent-sized fanbase you may sell a case of books, so bring your most popular ones and be ready to talk about them! If you have series, bring the first book in the series for sure, unless it's free. If it's free bring a postcard, or a sign with a QR code for people to download the first book for free and you can perhaps sell them the second book. — You can help gauge interest by setting up a pre-order! You can do that in Google Forms pretty easily. We'll do a blog post on it. — We always advise authors to look at this as a chance to BUILD a fanbase and NETWORK with other authors and publishing professionals. I (Heather) consider book events as part of my marketing budget. You may not break even with book sales, but you WILL build fans if you engage with attendees. Even if they don't buy that day, be sure to send them away with something that might get them to buy later. Can I ship books to the venue if I am traveling by plane? We will update you on this, but probably yes. Will you market our pre-orders? WE WOULD LOVE TO MARKET YOUR PRE-ORDERS! It's a great idea to set up pre-orders so your fans can meet you in person and get their books signed! All you have to do is watch for us to put out a call for graphics and links to market on socials to encourage people to pre-order. Will you be charging for tickets? Yes we charge for tickets. This helps us not have to put the full cost on authors. All tickets are what we consider fair for the market and are less than $30. Some authors were unhappy that we charged for tickets, but it's a common practice and if we don't charge for tickets, we have to put more costs onto the authors. There will be multiple chances to tell your audience about discounted tickets, so please watch for that. Do you allow fans with books they already own to have them signed? Absolutely! We hope they buy a ticket to attend to see you and buy some more of your books!  Hi all! We are going to be opening registration this week for the 2025 book fest! We are very excited to have you be part of our little fest that could! All vendor updates will be on this blog with occasional reminders that it's here via email. Thank you and happy writing!
Hello! WOW - what a festival! You all helped make it AMAZING! I'm going to keep this short and sweet because Cardyn and I are still recovering, but I wanted to get these things out to you so you'd have an update before the weekend.  FEEDBACK Below is a link to the feedback form. It's long. You can just fill out the parts you want, but as we are still new to the book fest game, your answers will help shape the future. Maybe take the survey when you have about 20 minutes free to do so. 2025 INTEREST If you are interested in being among the first to be notified before we go live with 2025 registration please fill out the interest form. We expect to be accepting registration in the spring of 2024. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScEemMZ-jaY6zZSdp22mfcXDsNqImbyfV3e_KpOeTx3AP58uQ/viewform BOOKSTORE UPDATE Having 100+ participating authors this year who are mostly self-pubbed, indie or through Amazon combined with the complicated ordering criteria for Barnes & Noble and independent bookstores like Curmudgeon Books when stocking books that aren’t from the big major publishers created a bit of an administrative bottleneck. Sincerest apologies for underestimating how much more time was needed to make this element of TWWBF go smoothly. The good news is that B & N and Curmudgeon Books still plan to create displays of books by TWWBF authors and to keep them up later into the winter holiday shopping season. B & N’s is currently a work in progress using books by TWWBF authors that were already in-stock to get started. Is my book in the store? Here's how to check for B & N: Go to barnesandnoble.com, search for your book by title or author, then under "Pick Up In Store" click the "Check Availability at Nearby Stores" and change the distance to 5mi, enter 20715 zip code, which will yield the Bowie Town Center store as the only result. Green check marks next to "in stock in store" and "available for pick up in store" mean it's there; red check marks mean it's not. A reminder that the store has complete control over this and their decision is final. Also, please be patient. This year's list of authors was significantly longer than previous years and has shown that we need a much longer lead time on ordering. On the plus side, books that make the bookstore criteria will be on display deeper into the winter holiday gift-buying season than in previous years. And you can always encourage your fans to order books at the Bowie Town Center B & N in-person or online year-round, which still helps you as the author, the store and TWWBF. Details are less defined right now for Curmudgeon Books, but here are the links for their store website and for bookshop.org: https://curmudgeonbooks.com/ https://bookshop.org/shop/curmudgeonbooks IMAGES BELOW FROM THE B&N DISPLAY IN BOWIE
Hello Lovely TWWBF Community! I wanted to pause all of this frantic work to get everything in place to say thank you to all of you for your time and energy you've put into this event. We have at least doubled in growth since 2019 - and during two pandemic years! We pivoted! We twisted into pretzels! We figured it out as best we could under super weird circumstances!
As an event organizer I have two serious fears - that people will leave disappointed in the event, and that somebody will show up and say they registered for a table and I've never heard of them! I realize that last one is very unlikely, but it's kind of like the dream where you missed a test you didn't know about and now you won't graduate. SAME VIBE. But the first fear is a lot more realistic because we ARE STILL a newish event that is not genre-specific. I've done a lot of event research and it seems that two strong elements that help determine a sell-out event:
Each year we learn more and continue to evolve and improve. We still have big ideas for this event we plan to slowly implement. We're glad you're here to be a part of our history. Please BE SURE to take photos, and videos, post on Instagram and Facebook and TikTok - talk about the event and show your tables off. Get photos for future posts to help market yourself at other events. This event will give you a lot of material for social media - which is important whether we like it or not! That being said - we expect this new venue for Saturday's event to be great and keep us out of any weather and have plenty of parking. There's a bar for chatting after the event and meeting other authors if you like. There's going to be good energy surrounding this event, and we're so glad you're a part of it. Thank you and all my best - Heather Brooks UPDATED 10/10
REGARDING BOOKSTORE & LIBRARY DISPLAYS I'm sorry it's not easy to be brief with the bookstore info. The library display is at the Hyattsville branch. Some people who have been with us for the past few years might recall that they had been at multiple branches previously and have an expectation of that. PGCMLS has changed it to the Hyattsville branch only, which is where they have their collection of local authors. The bookstore displays at Barnes & Noble and Curmudgeon are in the works. First I want to just say that we appreciate that such big bookstores are willing to partner with us - they don't give us any money, and we don't give them any. This is just something I arranged because I know it feels really great to see your book in a book store. They are doing it to support our efforts and likewise for us. The amount of authors this year has meant a lot more time spent on sorting and ordering. They expectation set from years past was that the display would be up and complete by the week of the fest, then come down right after. That was the days of 60 or fewer authors in participation. We now have - including virtual and legacy - about 130 authors. Naturally, it's taking longer for us, and for them to coordinate this larger effort. Also, apparently some of the printers for some of the publishers take longer than others by weeks. Since the displays are somewhat delayed what they're going to do is leave them up after the festival for a bit. I don't have the exact amount of time yet, and I still don't have a list of who or what books they were able to acquire yet. As soon as they get me that info I will update all of you, but it may be after the book fest. THE UPSIDE is this is a perfect opportunity to push folks to the bookstores for buying yours and other author's books for the holiday season. If your book does not make it into the display due to it being print on demand indie or self pubbed with limited distribution, then we recommend following advice on platforms for publishing wide - like Wide for the Win on Facebook and Johanna Penn's podcast has a lot of advice. Draft2Digital is also helpful and has lots of videos and a blog, and when we do this again you should be all set. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 14 Bowie Comfort Inn
++You DO need to bring your own books and products and way to sell them - we don't do any of the sales. WIFI IS AVAILABLE AND COMPLIMENTARY THROUGH THE HOTEL - THERE IS NO PASSWORD ++Lunch will be served at 1:30pm. We won't be breaking for lunch, it's an eat at your table sort of situation. Apparently the hotel has a place they set out the boxed lunches and you collect them - the ones for special dietary needs will have their names on them - so please pay attention and don't take one of the special lunches. The digital program for Saturday is here: https://www.thewritewomenbookfest.org/2023-program.html ******************************************************************************************************** ******************************************************************************************************** SUNDAY 10/15 Marietta House Museum Program: https://www.thewritewomenbookfest.org/2023-sunday-events.html Sunday is broken up into two parts: The luncheon and Workshops ***THERE IS NO TABLING/SELLING ON SUNDAY*** it's networking and lunch and workshops only. The first part of the event presenters and participants who registered for the luncheon should arrive around 10:45am (no earlier than 10:30am) and check in at the info table. Parking is on the premises and free. Please fill out the form as to which workshops you'd like to take: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScl_vwNm5PV7K6y-WMaJSZ4trKGVVT9czpJg-TPFTQGmRHu9g/viewform?usp=sf_link You'll collect your badge, learn where things are located and if you're teaching a workshop, you'll want to locate your room for when lunch is over because the schedule is tight. We plan to make the days a little longer in the future so we have more time between classes. After the luncheon then you'll head straight to classrooms - and that's when other members of the public will also arrive who will be attending workshops, but did not sign up for the luncheon. It is OK if we run a bit past 5pm. Don't get too stressed about that. FULL TABLE
A.A. Sanchez Audrey Hughey BK Lockamy Beth Sorensen Blair Hampton Calla Claire Carli & Co - Carliss Maddox Cheryl W. Brooks Jacy Sellers & Nicole D’Archangelo FM Deemyad Felicia Campbell J.S. Living Kai Jae Kate McWilliams Katie Egan Schenck Rachelle Jones Smith L.T. Kodozo Laurisa Brandt Maria Secoy AWW Melissa Boyd Melting Prose N.D. Jones Jodaéa Quill and Co. Sarah Birnbach Tahiya Cooper Tisa Melton Tyauna Bruce Victoria Noe Mary Tilghman/MRW Authors Patti & EC P&P Jeaniene Frost Liv Macy HALF TABLE Alexandra Grace Terri Johnson BSZ Brianna Ellis C.L. Holliday-Firmin Carrie Boone Cecelia Dowdy Christina Anne Talitha C. Davis E. R. Griffin E.S. Rosalynn Eden Appiah-Kubi Eva Aminolemeh Heather M Naeemah Staggs J. Ember Hintz J.L. Birchwood J.K Divia K.M. Bishop Katherine Gibson Newcomer Keisha Juanita L.E. DeLano Lorie-Ann Brown, M.S., LCPC Ciara L. Hill Jamila Ramero Mary E. Jung Madison Castle Meg Edson Dr. Monica Hawkins Rebecca Cassidy Robin Burgess Ruya Telhami Sandra Dee Selena Haskins Shameka Erby Simki Kuznick Rosita Stevens-Halsey Stephanie K Clemens Jazzmyne Townsend Kait Disney-Leugers Danielle Spencer Jessica Dall Beck Erixson D. D. Hopkins Rebecca Laxton Michelle M. Brown Eva Amiolemeh Natalie Jobity Taunya Lynnette LM Berthiaume B. Reads FOR VIRTUAL AUTHORS ONLY
If you would like to provide swag for the event you can mail it to: Heather Brooks The Write Women Network 324 Main St. PO Box 1652 Laurel, MD 20707 We will put your swag at the INFO BOOTH during the Saturday event. Left over swag may be used for giveaways. We cannot return leftover swag. Please note, it's hard to give everybody an update as to if I got their swag or not. I will post updates here on this blog entry as the list updates. I may not post the day I get your swag, but I will post evry four or five days if swag keeps arriving. One of the things we would like to do to help promote the event is to suggest people who already may own one of your books to come get it signed. If for some reason this is disagreeable to you, please let us know as soon as possible as we will be starting that campaign soon.
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