Episode 116: Bookselling at shows and mindset shifts with Clare C. Marshall

September’s theme is learning new things and stretching gently out of your comfort zone. This episode is the interview for September with Clare Marshall about selling books at craft shows and comic conventions, a topic that does push a lot of introverted authors out of their comfort zones, but it’s an experience you can learn a lot from.

Now, with rising Covid numbers and the Delta Variant, the show scene for this fall and the holiday season is still very up in the air. I’m crossing my fingers that some of the outdoor shows closer to Christmas will still be going and I’ll get a spot—with one soon to be two books with ties to the holidays, I know that’s my time. But, as we’ve all had to learn the past year and half, we have to roll with the punches.

Eventually, shows will be back in full force and all of the fantastic advice Clare gives will be great to come back to again and again. We had a wonderful and slightly long chat. I admit, I love doing shows even thought it has been a long time, and I did let myself geek out about this topic.

In other announcements, this week (hopefully Friday–I’ve had some tech issues!) is the launch of my podcast for newbie writers: Let’s Start Writing!

About Clare:

Clare C. Marshall grew up in rural Nova Scotia with very little television and dial-up internet, and yet she turned out okay. She is the founder and author-publisher behind Faery Ink Press, where she publishes young adult science fiction, fantasy, and horror novels. Her fantasy novel, The Violet Fox was given an honorable mention in the 2016 Whistler Independent Book Awards and its sequel, The Emerald Cloth, was nominated for Best YA Novel in the 2019 Prix Aurora Awards. When she’s not writing or fiddling up a storm, she enjoys computer games and making silly noises at her two cats, Pinecone and Pavlova. She lives in Calgary with her husband.

Find her post-mortems of shows here.

And her blog on publishing.

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