Leilanie Stewart

Last week someone asked me on Instagram whether or not I do any book tours or festivals. I replied that I no longer do book signing events. Apart from the odd token fair, mainly for promo, I stopped doing live events several years ago. Want to know why?

Book signing events versus selling online:

If an author wants to do a book signing event, first they need to purchase copies of their book(s) at author price – in my case, half the retail price including shipping. You then need to think of prices that might attract readers, not necessarily your retail price. For example, at my last book fair, I sold copies like this:

4 books = £20

3 books = £18

2 books = £14

1 book = £8

If you don’t sell all your stock, depending on how many you bought, you’ll need storage space in your house/garage/somewhere to keep them. In my case I only buy a handful of each at a time, knowing that they don’t all sell upfront at any given event. The rest go to public libraries or cafes that participate in book swaps. I don’t have a big house, and it’s already spilling over with books.

On the other hand, selling online costs an author nothing. With POD the online retailer simply prints a copy whenever a customer orders one. In my case, I use Amazon KDP for my paperbacks and Ingramspark for my hardcovers. Amazon and Ingramspark deduct printing costs, shipping costs and then pay royalties at around 60% for print. The only thing I pay for is sponsored advertising fees, which are optional – not all authors choose to pay for advertising, and may rely solely on their own social media marketing. I do both advertising and social media marketing. It seems to work. Last year I sold 166 books online: 129 paperbacks/eBooks and 37 hardcovers, as well as 15,903 KU page reads. That may not seem a lot to more commercial authors, but the numbers add up each year and I made more in royalties in 2023 than I spent on advertising.

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