Last week I participated in ArtNite, an annual event in the city of Pasadena, California, which highlights art, music, and local authors. It was a wonderful event attended by many families. I enjoyed the opportunity to market my book, and just as importantly, to network with other authors, share ideas and talk about our writing experiences. The authors I spoke with agreed that marketing is a challenge but a necessary evil (not sure if that’s the right phrase, but using it anyway) if one is to succeed as an indie author. Ideally, I’d like to write novels, post the titles on Amazon, let the books sell themselves, and move onto the next project. Of course, that’s an unrealistic expectation. But if marketing is a journey I must take, I might as well enjoy it, and ArtNite was fun.

Not only was ArtNite fun, it was special because the author fair was held at Pasadena’s central library, where I learned to read as a five-year-old child. I’ve blogged before about my learning-to-read experience, so I won’t go into the details again. Suffice to say that it was sort of a magical feel to return to the place where I was introduced to reading, and to return there as a writer. My love of books and reading partly springs from the childhood days that I spent in that library.

I look forward to participating in other book fairs in the future, but, for me, probably none will have the special significance of ArtNite.