Indie Author Day in South Carolina

Indie Author Day just happened to be the same day Hurricane Matthew decide to smash it's way through the east coast. We struggled with the decision of cancelling or not cancelling. We decided to go ahead and just do it. We were a few hours inland and a lot of homes had no power, there was rain and wind, but nothing we couldn't handle.

We were so relieved when we unlocked those doors and people began walking in. The event started with some mingling - we actually had a game so people would talk to one another. Hey! I know a lot of writers are introverted and may not talk to one another. We had to make that a non-issue so they could network with one another. Then I got up and spoke on how to approach a book reviewer. There were a few people who felt a book reviewer is useless for them, however, there were several who told me it was exactly what they needed to hear and they could leave then. 😄 That made my day. I also left with 4 more books to review and 2 contacts. Overall, I'd say my book reviewer discussion was a success.

There was a reading of Aroon by MB Gibson (review coming soon) and then Sasscer Hill, a hybrid author, spoke about the differences between indie, small press, and main publishers. It was mostly about money and how to make it.

After lunch, we had a panel. This was originally going to be a half hour, but because of Hurricane Matthew, there was no Internet access so we turned this into an hour. Yay! That meant we couldn't watch the nationally broadcasted panel, but that was okay. We had fun and we worked with what we had.

We then had a reading by Marti Healy. She made all the feels come out. There were tears. I ended up getting a copy of one of her children's books - I just loved her writing style and knew my children would enjoy it as well.

Then the fun began. We took selfies with the self-e pamphlet... get it? We had authors and book signings everywhere. We even had local indie songwriters there. My daughter LOVED them.

The little girl in the pictures is my daughter.

I think overall it went very well. We got some great insight to make next year's bigger and better. Did you have fun at your local indie Author Day celebration? What did you do? Share those ideas!