Book Signing Locations & Genre

fedorable1 said:

Would you recommend having simple, tried-and-true places for a book signing - i.e. book stores, libraries, etc. - regardless of genre?

Or, do you think it might be an acceptable idea to market for your specific genre? Examples would be, say, coffee shops for poetry books, comic book stores for sci-fi/fantasy, museums for historical works, etc.

Just curious.

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I think you should definitely market for your specific genre. We publish several different categories of books, and I wouldn't bother trying to do a book signing for our teacher-specific books in a regular bookstore, hoping that a teacher might walk by. Rather, I'd target teacher-supply stores or education stores (or wherever) for signings. If you know where the people who read your kinds of books hang out, go for it! That's where your audience is, and they would appreciate it that an author "knows" them like that.

I'll agree, marketing to a specific genre is the best way to go, but don't ignore the broad audiences either. Look for the specialty shops in the cities that have them, or at least places that relate to your genre, then go for the big dogs. In Austin, we have the nation's largest independant bookseller. They're general in their fiction, but they draw big crowds. In another town I go, the biggest crowds are drawn by Barnes and Noble, so I hit that one.

What might be some typical non-generalist places to attempt to do book signings in, particularly for fantasy novels?

In Austin, we have the nation's largest independant bookseller.

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You mean Book People? They're good (actually, they're Publisher's Weekly's Best Indie store in America for 2005), but I'm pretty sure that Tattered Cover in Denver is bigger. I've been to both. Tattered Cover has more overall square footage, but Book People is a VERY cool store!