The Local Author Fair at the Fullerton Central Library was a fun and successful event. I sold books, met some new authors (including a 16-year-old who has published two books), and gave a reading despite an overly sensitive microphone. It also gave me some important lessons—especially the need to (as that 16-year-old would say) touch grass.

Being a writer is a solitary enough business. It’s even worse to be chronically online. Algorithms feed you a steady diet of doom and gloom, and the only thing you can look forward to is a certain public figure dropping dead. The online writing world is equally dismal with people behaving badly at book events, authors attacking one another online, authors attacking reviewers, so-called experts saying you’re wasting your time if you don’t write a certain way or in a certain genre, and how AI Will Destroy Us All!

But you go outside and talk to real readers and real authors, and you get a more realistic picture. For starters, you find out what readers actually want to read. What I found out at this event surprised me.

Mastering Table Topics usually sells the most at these events, except at Commodore events where Amiga flies off the shelf. But at this event, I sold the most copies of The Remainders. A book about a homeless son and his troubled father is typically a hard sell. I suspect The Remainders has gotten new relevancy because of everything that’s happening in our country, or people want a story with characters they can care about. This reminds us that what readers want from their books change. Instead of chasing whatever genre is popular at the moment, you should write books you believe in.

It also helps to ask readers what kind of books they are interested in. I talked about Christina’s Portrait to one of the friends of the teen author. Older teens like her are one of Christina’s Portrait‘s intended audiences. She gave me good feedback, and she was excited for the book. This experience helps me refine my pitch to agents and publishers.

One of the main takeaways from this event is how much people still love reading and books. They want human stories with human emotions. That’s why the best way to sell books is face-to-face. Talk to people. Let them know an actual person wrote the book. Show the passion you put into it. Writing is all about community and connection. You can find it by going out, spending time with other people, and touch grass.