Writers Guild Bloomington Hosting Local Authors at Inaugural Book Fair Book lovers can meet 30 authors at Monroe County History Center in November

Molly Gleeson had an idea.

One day a friend asked her, “What could you talk about for half an hour and not run out of things to say?” Gleeson, a writer and member of the Writers Guild at Bloomington (WGB), didn’t hesitate. She blurted, “Writing!”

Before she knew it, Gleeson found herself immersed in the details — the planning, the recruiting, the logistics — of staging the inaugural Local Authors Book Fair here in Bloomington, sponsored by the WGB.

Molly Gleeson is organizing the Local Authors Book Fair. She spoke about it (above) with Michael G. Glab on WFHB Community Radio. | Limestone Post

She’s putting together this ambitious event for published local authors to meet and chat with loyal readers as well as those who haven’t discovered them just yet. She’s wrangled 30 authors to gather at the Monroe County History Center, Saturday, November 2, 2024, 10 a.m.–3 p.m. Admission will be free; the conversation, priceless.

“It’s about building community,” Gleeson says. “These are all interesting people. It’ll be nice for them to be all in one place talking to each other, being in a literary community.”

The public can drop in at any time during the five-hour event to converse with the authors and each other.

One of the scheduled authors is children’s picture book author Keiko Kasza, with 22 books published in 17 different languages to her credit. She’ll be at the history center to commune with her readers.

“I did a book signing in Colombia,” Kasza says. “All these parents and teachers came with children, with all kinds of stories. One parent said, looking at her daughter who’s about three years old, ‘She has brain cancer.’ Another mother came to me and said, ‘My son is autistic and could not come because of his condition. That’s why I’m here, to get your signature.’ So many stories I hear. I get connected with people who read my books.”

The stories will be flowing from author to reader and vice versa at the November event. Of the 30 local writers scheduled to be on hand, five of them have been published by a traditional major publishing house. The rest have published books non-traditionally.

Self-publishing is a fast-growing segment of the book market. Options like IngramSpark and Amazon offer slates of packages for the aspiring author. These companies can handle everything from editing and design to marketing and publicity, depending on how much the writer wants to spend.

The fair will take place on Saturday, November 2, 2024, at the Monroe County History Center, 10 a.m.–3 p.m. Admission will be free. | Limestone Post

“Some of those who’ve self-published do it because they want to move on,” Gleeson says. “They’re done with this book, they love this book, and they want to get it out there, but it takes too long to do it the traditional route. Self-publishing serves a real need.”

Traditional publishers demand no financial risk on the part of the writer. Countless authors submit manuscripts to the Big Five publishing houses — Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Random House, and Simon & Schuster — and numerous smaller publishers, but only a precious few authors are allowed in the door. Those lucky few won’t have to risk their own money, but the traditional route is long and arduous. It’s not unusual for three or more years to pass between the submission of a manuscript and a completed book-release date.

Dependable statistics are hard to come by, but it’s estimated that for every title released each year in the United States by traditional publishers, another three or more are self-published. Most have a scant chance of selling an appreciable number of copies or even being carried by bookstores in the first place.

Nevertheless, authors are eager to get their work out before the public.

Rebekah Spivey | Courtesy photo

Rebekah Spivey, a certified writing facilitator for Women Writing for (a) Change, works for Holon Publishing as an editor. She’ll be at the Local Authors Book Fair, bearing her new novel, Marigolds and Boxes. Holon’s publishing the book and Spivey says such self-publishing companies offer a variety of packages for authors. “You don’t have to find an agent,” she says. “A publisher like Holon does the design, the pagination, they find the printer, they help you market your book. They give you good advice.”

Holon even advised Spivey to form an LLC to protect her as an independent businessperson whose product is words on a page.

Going with a self-publishing platform entails a financial investment. Most, like Holon, offer a variety of packages with a graduated system of more services at greater cost.

The self-publishing industry offers an enhanced opportunity for authors whose books are targeted at specific geographic or special-interest readerships. Charlotte Zietlow, for instance, will be at the Local Authors Book Fair. Her two books (one of them co-written with the author of this article) are of interest to a limited local market.

The fair will give local readers a great opportunity to rub shoulders with these lesser-known writers.

Keiko Kasza | Courtesy photo

Some big-selling authors will be among the fair’s special guest authors — the lucky ones whose books have been released by traditional publishing houses. They include Nate Powell, whose graphic novel trilogy, March, was a New York Times bestseller; intermediate-grade-level novelist, Rob Harrell; and children’s book authors Teresa Robeson, Tanya Konerman, and the aforementioned Keiko Kasza.

The traditional route can be compared to playing the state lottery — your chances are vanishingly slim but if you win, you can win big. For every Colleen Hoover or Kristin Hannah, there are innumerable anonymous writers.

Kasza has been with the same traditional publisher, G.P. Putnam & Sons, for 30 years. That relationship entailed no financial investment on her part but is subject to the vagaries of the marketplace. Kasza’s picture books have sold well through the years and are beloved. The actors Paula Poundstone, Bea Arthur, Lily Tomlin, Kathy Najimy, and Mary Tyler Moore voiced the characters of her bestseller A Mother for Choco for the book-on-tape version. Yet she’s sensing less enthusiasm for her work on Putnam’s part these days. She does exquisite, time-consuming drawings by hand in ink and gouache (a water-soluble pigment) for her books. But publishers are starting to prefer digital art in children’s books, reasoning kids prefer it.

Claire Arbogast | Courtesy photo

Claire Arbogast has seen the publishing game from both angles. Her memoir, Leave the Dogs at Home, was published by Indiana University Press in 2015. She had to take the self-publishing road for her new novel, If Not the Whole Truth. Arbogast set up her own kitchen-table company, Margin Key, for her second book. “I started my own micro-publisher to protect myself legally and to add credibility to If Not the Whole Truth,” she says.

“The hardest part of doing all this myself is the lack of contacts with the big book reviewers, but other elements are so much better!” Arbogast says. “Control over the cover design and over the marketing is very rewarding. I was just thinking the other day, while driving around to bookstores in Indy and putting together a loose idea for another book, that I’m never going to beg another agent or publisher to accept my work again. My market is a local, regional one that’s built on relationships.”

Molly Gleeson began setting up this collection of scribblers in January, after getting the go-ahead from the WGB. “I had the idea of getting Author Solutions (a local self-publishing platform) to be a sponsor,” Gleeson recalls. “I went to their office on the west side. It was that week when it was so cold. There were no cars in the parking lot. It was really frigid and the sign on the door said, ‘No Public Admittance.’ I thought, ‘Oh no!’

Nate Powell | Courtesy photo

“But,” she continues, “this SUV pulled up and a man got out. I said, ‘I’m here from the Writers Guild and I’m wondering who I can talk to about this idea.’

“He said, ‘You can talk to me.’”

The man turned out to be Scott Walters, the company’s global director of products and events. He set the wheels in motion to get Gleeson a $2,000 Author Solutions sponsorship for the book fair. “The whole thing has been very lucky,” Gleeson says.

Gleeson then got to work recruiting writers. That was easy. “There’s a need for this,” Gleeson says. “It takes a lot of effort to get your book out there. Some authors have websites, some don’t. Where can they go to sell their books? So this is a nice opportunity for them.”

Gleeson secured the Monroe County History Center as a venue and then a crew to handle publicity, logo design, social media management, and even stage design. “My brother’s a scenic designer,” she says. “He’s helping me lay out the room.”

Gleeson got commitments from Needmore Coffee Roasters, Two Sticks Bakery, and Bivis Torres, who makes authentic Mexican tamales, to provide food and drink. There’ll be a raffle for products from local businesses, and the Book Corner will sell titles written by the traditionally published authors. Musicians will perform throughout the event. The self-published bunch will sell their books onsite either with their own point-of-sale devices or through the history center’s checkout system.

“I wanted everything local — local writers, local businesses, local products,” Gleeson says.

The books written by the five featured authors, by and large, do well, but the 25 self-published authors have to scramble to make money off their work. “Their work is honorable, too. It’s an important thing to do. And clearly there’s a need for it,” Gleeson says.

She knows because she’s been writing, on and off, since she was a kid. She has a novel in hand and hopes to get it published by one of the traditional houses. Titled Due North, she calls it “my smutty apocalyptic survivalist lesbian love story.” The plot revolves around a group of women trekking northward to Canada after the electrical grid goes down in the United States. “It’s an adventure,” Gleeson says.

An adventure almost as grueling as getting the book published.

Listen to Claire Arbogast, Rebekah Spivey, and Molly Gleeson talk about the writing life on Michael G. Glab’s interview show, Big Talk, on WFHB. The show airs Thursdays at 5:30 p.m., and you can listen to it anytime at wfhb.org/category/news-public-affairs/public-affairs/big-talk/.