Success at Birmingham Book Extravaganza

Hello everyone! I’m back with another book update and this is a really happy one. What a great birthday present of sorts! I’m so happy with how my book was received and I did not expect such an interest and so many sales in one day, especially given how previous events have gone. I always believe in expressing myself in the most authentic way possible and showing not just the glamour of being an author, but also the sad realities as well. I certainly don’t want anyone going in with unreasonable expectations.

The week leading up to this event I was extremely pessimistic because I had an event at a bookshop last month where I only sold two books. I felt like rubbish. Sure two sales isn’t nothing, but it was at the low end of what the bookshop said authors have sold. Am I really that bad of a writer? Am I the only classic rock fan left in the world? Am I a degenerate for writing about such grisly, morbid topics? That’s what was running through my head for weeks.

One of my friends, Chloë, who does a lot of arts and crafts and gets involved in a lot of groups related to that reassured me that sales at a fair aren’t a reflection of the quality of your work and success is a luck of the draw and unpredictable: where is your stall located, the weather, what other events are on that day, or what kind of crowd shows up – demographics or what interests they have or how much money they have to spend. Similarly, a lot of Etsy sellers run into the same thing. They could have no sales one month and then the next month they’re fully booked out and their calendar is full of busy days working on commissions. There are so many times that I’ve really wanted something from an Etsy shop and I’m like, today isn’t the day but one day I’ll get that item! If it’s an in person market and I don’t have the budget for an item that I’ve fallen in love with, perhaps I’ll take a card and I’ll purchase the item when I have more funds later on down the line, especially if the owner of the shop is super nice and friendly.

My book is really niche because it’s about classic rock and true crime and those topics have their fans and they are out there, but I wouldn’t say they’re the biggest fandoms and the ones who would get the most out of my book are those who love both, and I know they’re out there! It’s not a book for all ages. I’m an anomaly because I’ve been into true crime since I was 8 or 9 years old, and to be clear I do not advocate showing your children true crime documentaries. This book is more for teens and adults.

When I did the bookstore event, a lot of families happened to come in that day and while some parents like true crime, they might not go out of their way to buy a true crime book written by some chronically ill woman in bed, especially if they’re shopping for books for their child. Understandable. When you have kids, you gotta put your kids first, if you don’t, well that’s bad parenting!

There was almost no publicity for my event and poor marketing can be a killer, many such cases like I’ve written about in that blog post about classic rock’s greatest commercial flops. How can someone buy something if they don’t know about it? How many times have you seen a poster for a really cool event and then you’re like, wait how did I not know about this until after it had happened? Obviously it’s no one’s fault. It was really just bad luck and it’s not fair to compare that event to this one in Birmingham which had gone better than I ever expected.

As I left the house, I told my husband maybe we’ll sell a couple of books and that will be it. I’m keeping my expectations low so that way I won’t be disappointed. We took an Uber to the venue since we had a lot of stuff and I didn’t want to kill myself waking up too early and my husband talked to the driver, who happened to like true crime and music too, about the book and the driver was like I don’t think you’ll need any luck selling it. We set up the table and here’s how it looked:

My friend Chloë made the crochet bunting and crochet moon keychains and the moon pillow behind the mushroom Squishmallow with the Dave Davies sunglasses. The crochet got a lot of compliments and I think that the stall looks really cohesive with the purple floral print tablecloth, purple plushies, purple crochet, my book, and my outfit! My outfit got a lot of compliments by the way! So before the book fair started, I wanted to take a couple of pictures with my book:

One thing that I’ve learnt about these book fairs is that people get up bright and early and the early hours are the busiest. I often try to get to these fairs and markets first thing when it opens because I want to get the best selection of things and find those treasures (especially if they’re vintage!). First come, first served right? Most of my sales were made in the first few hours, and before I knew it… and then there were three:

I always get nervous in crowds and crowded places and especially when there’s other people doing the same thing around you, you can’t help but compare yourself, even if it isn’t an apples to apples comparison. I’d see other stalls selling out around me and it was a bit slow at first, especially because a lot of people who go to fairs want to window shop and check all of the offerings first before making a purchase. When I’m in their position, admittedly, I do the same thing! I only have a certain amount budgeted to spend at a market or a fair and it’s tough making decisions of what to purchase when so many things are tempting.

Like I said before, today may not be the day I make that purchase, but I might in the future! Of all the books available for sale at the market, I’m very honoured that 18 wonderful people chose my book and as a result I’ve almost sold out. I only had one book left. You didn’t have to pick my book at all or give me the time of day! People work hard for their money these days and you have to account for every penny.

It’s also not just about sales, but about networking and getting your name out there. There’s only so much promoting of your book you can do within your circle until everyone in it who wants a copy has already got a copy, so you need to find ways of doing outreach. Get those business cards ready, get hyped up and put on a smile and a friendly face and promote your work!

Even those who didn’t buy my book praised my hard work and dedication. No one could accuse me of knowing nothing about classic rock or of my book being poorly researched. That’s really nice to hear. I know that classic rock and true crime aren’t everyone thing, but even just hearing nice things about the cover design and my knowledge of the topics means a lot to me and is incredibly validating.

This news was definitely encouraging and I intend on doing more book fairs in the future as I love connecting with readers and sharing my passion for rock and roll and true crime with you.

The very last one!

Also, I got a bargain at the book fair: Dita Von Teese’s Burlesque/Fetish: The Art of the Teese for just £10! She’s one of my biggest style inspirations:

Thank you so much Birmingham for a great day! Here’s to success in Northampton!

Also, just wanted to share a podcast appearance that I recorded a few months back that I didn’t have the chance to share. I was on the Vintage Annals Archive Deep Dive podcast and author Ricky Tucker interviewed me about my book. You can listen to the podcast below.

Here are a couple of quotes from the interview:

On celebrities and true crime:

“I’ve always had an interest in true crime, especially celebrity court cases. Those really interest me a lot. I was a baby when the whole OJ Simpson stuff was going on, but it remained in the pop culture so I definitely had a lot of familiarity with that. And I think it’s just the star power, just the star factor, and I think that’s what really made cases like this, there’s crimes of the century, there’s trials of the century, and there’s like Charles Manson. I think the interest and appeal was just these Manson Family members, they could be your peers. They were so relatable. Like what could make someone fall into that sort of lifestyle? And that stuff fascinates me so much, the psychology of it.”

On my international focus:

“A lot of the other true crime and rock and roll books, I didn’t know of any other ones besides this one, I’d only found out about them after the fact, after I’ve written the book. And none of them have such an international focus. This one isn’t just Americanocentric. I’ve always made it a point in my writing to talk about more than just American stories.”

On hippies and the cultural end of the 60s:

“We talk about Altamont, we talk about Kent State. When we get to DEVO, Kent State had such an impact on them, that’s where the band name came from. The whole idea of devolution and all the violence and all the chaos and just growing disillusioned with the hippie ideology. I know that when I was a teenager I was all starry-eyed and idealistic about the hippies, but then I was like wait, is this all real? And then I was reading a quote from Ray Davies of The Kinks autobiography X-Ray and it was about how the 60s was like a carrot held up to the youth to keep them from rebelling. Like, wow, that really changed my view of things. That and what DEVO said about devolution. It changed my view of the 60s. The music was a distraction and it was a swinging party that was only temporary and then the prosperity was gone and then what was left over?”

On the influence of aesthetes and dandies:

Photos for context:

Ricky: “You’re giving me Wildean chic right now”

Angie: “Oh, thank you! That’s the ultimate compliment. So yeah, definitely Oscar Wilde was a huge influence on me. Again, he was the first celebrity trial, 100 years before OJ Simpson. So that’s something that’s really interesting there. So yeah, a lot of my living room is based off of Oscar Wilde’s aestheticism. So there’s William Morris stuff there. This couch that I’m sitting on is from the 1860s. I have a Victorian era divan over there on the other side of my living room so I’ll often take pictures there. But living in Ireland, yeah how can you not be inspired by him? But I think my favourite Irish poet of all time is Phil Lynott and I’ll die on that hill. I don’t care what anyone says, I love Thin Lizzy.”

If you remember my comment in my interview on Grab a Stack of Rock, you’ll see that I allude to wanting to write a book about celebrity trials, this trial and OJ Simpson’s were huge inspirations for me wanting to write it: the evolution of celebrity culture and the coverage of celebrity trials is fascinating to me. A question I ponder sometimes is what if social media had existed 30 years ago or 130 years ago? Would the outcome have been different?

Stock update: Only 18 books are left at my house. If you want a signed copy, make sure to order soon while supplies last!

Future appearances:

• Northampton Book Extravaganza: Saturday 5 October 10:30-16:00 at Northampton Museum and Art Gallery 4-6 Guildhall Rd, Northampton NN1 1DP (Free entry)
• Southam Book Festival: Sunday 13 October 11:00-16:00 at the Graham Adams Centre in Southam, Warwickshire
• Coventry Book Extravaganza: Saturday 16 November 10:30-16:00 at the Belgrade Theatre Belgrade Square, Corporation St, Coventry CV1 1GS (Free entry)

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