From Publishers Weekly:
Few people are happy with how books are sold at literary festivals. New York City publishers think festivals don’t move books at volume. PW reported that attendees at this year’s BookCon were unsatisfied with aspects of the event. “There’s hardly any ARC drops or free books,” one BookCon attendee said. “It felt a lot like we paid for a ticket just to be allowed in to buy things,” said another.
But that’s not the case in Portland, Ore., where book vouchers power a high volume of book sales at the 10,000-person, one-day Portland Book Festival held each November. A $5 voucher is rolled into the cost of a festival ticket. Admission is cheap at $15 for preorders and $20 at the door. With vouchers for all paid ticketholders, festivalgoers get up to one-third of their entry fees back to spend with vendors at the festival, including booksellers at the nine event locations and small- and midsize presses that exhibit their wares on the expo floor.
The voucher idea appealed to Amanda Bullock shortly after she was hired in 2015 to be director of the PBF and moved to Portland from New York. In New York, she noticed, “you’d pay for a $10 event ticket, and they’d throw in a free drink.” Why not do the same thing for books?
Vouchers keep everybody happy because they are not a discount. Literary Arts, the largest literary nonprofit in Oregon, which acquired PBF in 2015, absorbs the cost, and booksellers and publishers get paid their full prices.
. . . .
Vouchers lower the risk of buying a new thing. Craig Bunn, associate sales manager for Pomegranate Communications, said the press collected three to four dozen vouchers at last year’s PBF when it rented a large endcap booth on the expo floor. Pomegranate sold out of boxed notes, Edward Gorey specialty items, jigsaw puzzles, and knowledge cards. “People often spend more money when it feels like they’re getting a discount,” Bunn notes.
Because the vouchers can only be spent in person and on the day of the festival, people want to use the $5 for something. “We have seen an uptick in sales,” says Rachel Bell, publisher of Overcup Books. “As an independent publisher with a small catalogue, we love it when people deem our titles voucher worthy.”
Link to the rest at Publishers Weekly
As an indie author, I do just fine at the Tucson Festival of Books. Of course, TFOB is held on the mall of the University of Arizona, and there’s no admission fee. Over 130,000 people attend each year, not only because of the free admission, but because it’s generally 75 degrees and sunny in March.
There are plenty of big name authors being interviewed or on panels, as well as a special area for children and “Science City.” The lines to get books people have bought (at no discount) signed by the featured authors are huge.
Yes, there are freebie-seekers, but since the “giveaways” are limited to bookmarks and a dish of candy on the booth table, it’s not a big problem.
“Because the vouchers can only be spent in person and on the day of the festival, people want to use the $5 for something.”
An old trick; that ‘sale price or sale with coupon’ of something that if you took but a moment to think, you still normally wouldn’t have bought at that ‘sale’ price point.
It’s a con that works on some of us, but not always.
““People often spend more money when it feels like they’re getting a discount,” Bunn notes.”
‘feels like’, yuppers. 😉