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It isn’t every day you run across an author that is so committed to selling their book so successfully that they defy the laws of probability. Let me tell you about one who did!

Just so you know, this is not about self-promotion for one of my authors or my company, it is about accomplishment and what every person needs to be willing to do in life as well as in publishing.

I spent last weekend, the first weekend of June, at the Chicago Printers Row Lit Fest (formerly known as the Printers Row Book Festival). Now, not to give the coordinators too much of a hard time, I have to start this post by letting you know that Echelon normally has a full tent at this event and hosts more than 20 authors. This year, we were only given half a tent and 4 less tables than what we planned on and we still had 13 authors. So, this is how we started—in mini crisis.

The next crisis to come up involved debut legal suspense author Teresa Burrell (The Advocate)from San Diego, CA. I convinced Teresa that Printers Row would be an excellent place to sell books. Echelon generally sells close to 1000 books each year, all authors combined. So Teresa agreed, got herself on a plane, and flew half way across the country to attend.

We get to the tent Saturday morning and we start to set up. Authors are unloading their books, we are setting up displays as best we can with limited space, and we begin to sell books an hour before the event actually opens. Teresa and I had discussed her books, they had been shipped, and yet we couldn’t find any of the boxes. We looked all over.

So I got to work tracking them down. I found them, but they were four states away from where they needed to be. A series of unfortunate events had taken place and UPS had ultimately delivered the books someplace other than Chicago.

So, there’s Teresa with no books, half way across the country, and she had nothing to do. Wrong! Teresa calmed me down (how’s that for irony) and decided she was going to attempt to take orders for her book, collect the money, and we’d ship signed copies to each customer after the fact. Now, you’re nodding your head and feeling sorry for her right now, aren’t you, cause nobody is going to buy a $14.00 book and believe that the author will actually send it to them. Right?

Well, here is where the commitment part comes in. Teresa sucked up her anger, frustration, and disappointment and plastered a smile on her face. She passed out a gazillion bookmarks, talked to almost as many people, and with one hand tied behind her back and her left eye closed, she sold 72 books at the festival. Now, as authors, you know how remarkable it is to sell books when you have them, but she did it without even having the books there!

What’s even more exciting for this debut author is that she outsold each of the other authors at the Echelon Press tent as Printers Row 2009.
So, all you authors out there reading this, there are no more excuses for not being able to sell books. There is no more griping about a bad economy, no more blaming bad sales on competition from other authors, and certainly no more whining that books don’t’ sell at festivals.

Teresa Burrell, who stands just a hair over 5 foot, if that, is a force to be reckoned with and she has made it her goal in the industry to sell books to as many readers as she possibly can, no matter how bad the situation. She has also made the same commitment to every other aspect of her life. She really is quite extraordinary.

Authors:
How about you? Tell us your most extraordinary book selling event.

Readers:
What makes you decide what to buy and where? Do you get to those book festivals? I highly recommend that you do, it’s the most fun you’ll have ever have.

If you have any kind of business or product or anything that you hope to accomplish, you really need to be willing to overcome any obstacles the universe might plunk down in your way to accomplish your sales or whatever your goal is. Your plans are rarely going to happen as you need them to, so my prayer for you is that you have the strength to find it in yourself to take any series of unfortunate events and reshape them into your personal successes. I’ve seen it happen over and over and I believe you can do it. Do you?

Happy Reading!