INVOICES, PANELS, PRE-SALES, BARNES & NOBLE & LIBRARY

Hello Publishing Friends!
Well, it's been a helluva a year already. Feels like five years. Cardyn and I have been working in the background on the book fest and have some updates for you. I always get a flood of emails and questions every time a post a blog entry and it can take me a week or two to get through them all, just FYI.

Heather & Cardyn drag their stressed out butts to Barnes & Noble in February to finalize things for TWWBF 2025.

INVOICES 
We have 15 invoices that remain unpaid. Tomorrow 3/3 at 9pm is the drop dead cutoff for paying your invoice. This actually my LEAST FAVORITE part since I would do everything for free if I could, so please let's just get those in or if you're expecting to drop, let me know. So, folks who don't pay by close of business tomorrow will get a note on Tuesday that their space has been cancelled so we can move on to our next phase of planning. 

If you aren't sure if you paid your invoice just check for an email from Square. If you didn't pay yet and can't find your invoice please let me know ASAP. 

BARNES & NOBLE
EXTENDED DEADLINE - things were supposed to be in yesterday but a couple folks were still asking about it so I am extending the deadline until midnight tonight. So that makes this the LAST DAY TO FILL OUT THIS FORM - I am sending B&N Management the list tomorrow. 
As per the last blog entry, we are partnered with Barnes & Noble in Bowie again this year. You need to fill out this form if you want to apply to be a part of the display there, which will be during the weeks leading up to the fest. This is a benefit of participating with our fest and yes, even virtual participants are allowed to apply for this and it does not cost extra.

We will get notification in the coming months as to who's books will be included and they will be posted on this blog. I won't know until they release the list to me. They do encourage you to come sign your book! You'll go to the info booth and tell them you're going to sign your book and they'll put a special sticker on it.

PRE-ORDERS WITH BARNES & NOBLE
Most Importantly - Your Book Has to Be Able to Be in the B&N System
If your book/s is/are not available through B&N and you want to provide for preorders, you'll need to set one up for yourself we can link to  on our website.

This option is best for people who are flying, for people who have a larger fanbase and are likely to have 20 or more book orders, or for people  who might only want to bring a small amount of their own stock and really heavily push pre-orders.

HOW IT WORKS
Provide your readers with the store phone number and have them order your book from the Bowie Barnes & Noble and tell them it's for The Write Women Book Fest. The books will be ordered and held at the store by the manager until the event, or until the customer comes to pick it up - whichever comes first. That's it! Aren't sure if your book can be preordered through B&N? Call the number and they'll look it up and tell you.

You can do this for however many of your books you want to offer up for pre-order through this process. The drop-dead last date for people to get those orders in is Friday June 27th.

• Store number: 301-809-1552 (they are able to take orders Mon-Sat 10am-8pm, and Sunday 11am-630pm).
• How you get payment for preorders will be just like when a bookstore orders their books to sell, so through your distributor.

SELF PREORDERS
If you are coming from out of town or want to offer pre-orders and don't want to use B&N or can't because your books are distributed to or through B&N please fill out this form as soon as possible but no later than April 1st so we can market it on our website and we recommend you heavily market it yourself, too:

OTHER STUFF

• For instructions on how to participate with the library display please see the blog post before this one.
• A dedicated swag and raffle post will be coming later this month.
• Workshop and panel information also coming this month.
• As soon as we have the full headcount after tomorrow I will be able to finish the table layout and post it.
• I have been overwhelmed by the things going on in the news and our government, as many of you have and this meant I didn't get as many things done as quickly as I normally do. Plus I had to decide how I want to approach my use of META products. I have decided to stay on Instagram for now with the book fest and posts of author highlights and lists will resume very soon.

TICKETS
Please start promoting tickets as soon as you can. We will begin a hard push in the next couple of weeks.

We have tiered tickets this year with a range of options available. 
On Eventbrite people can buy our lower tier ticket only:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-write-women-book-fest-2025-tickets-1243638037849?utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=listing&utm-source=cp&aff=ebdsshcopyurl

For all ticket levels please direct people here:
https://www.thewritewomenbookfest.org/2025-tickets.html#/

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Cardyn, Heather, and Kim in front of Comfort Inn & Conference Center in Bowie after a meeting so Kim, our new Director of Children's programming could get a feel for the space.