Bob O’Connor – A book promoting opportunist.Recently, the author of The Perfect Steel Trap: Harp-ers Ferry 1859 did a successful book signing at a Weis Market and sold over 30 books in just a few hours. One reason this worked as well as it did was because O’Connor was the only author with a book for sale in the supermarket – very different than being in a bookstore surrounded by thousands of other books!!! Plus, everyone needs to do food shopping, and an opportunity to talk with an author enhances the food shopping experience. Free food samples provided for shoppers, compliments of the market, was also an obvious draw. Weis Markets is a regional chain of food markets located in communities mainly in the northeastern United States. Google “Weis Markets” and see if they have a store near you. Bob’s second book, The Virginian Who Might Have Saved Lincoln, published by Infinity Publishing, is now available for sale. “I was in a Weis Market to attend a book signing by another author I had read about in the newspaper. I contacted the store manager and he put me in touch with the regional marketing manager to see if I could do a book signing there, too. He arranged it, bought books from Infinity, made a huge banner (about 8’ x 4’ feet) featuring my book cover, my name and the book singing date, and printed bag stuffers that were put in the shopping bags several weeks prior to my being there. I also sent a press release out to the local newspaper. “The events are held on Friday evenings – usually between 5-8 or 4-8, depending on the store. It’s Prime shopping time. The store surrounded me with food for shoppers to sample from their party trays so people got to see and taste what’s available on the trays. The food attracted the customers to my table. “It is nice because Weis markets book sections have maybe 100 popular titles, a far cry from what I compete against at Borders, for instance. I was the only author in the store at that time. My placement in the store varies from store to store. Usually I am near the deli section as there is more open space there. And that is where customers order the trays. “This regional manager has stores in Charles Town and Martinsburg, WV; Hagerstown and Thurmont, MD; and Gettysburg, Shippensburg and Chambersburg, PA. I have done four events with him and have another the last Friday of April. I will start to redo the stores again with my second historical novel. I had my best sales day ever in Shippensburg in November. I sold 34 books in 3 hours!! Amazing. “Authors – this is certainly a non-traditional way to sell books, but it works! If you don't have a Weis store in your area, go to Food Lion, Safeway, or the store you have and see if they will do an event for you. It's good business for them to promote local authors! And they are promoting their party trays at the same time. And people have parties all year long. Their cost is minimal. Always, always, always send a thank you note to the stores where they hosted a signing event for you. That's just common courtesy.”
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