Recently I had the opportunity to travel to Kentucky for their SOKY Book Fest. I wanted to check it out to see if it was a good outlet to sell books myself in a year or two. SOKY takes place in Bowling Green, and that is also where the Corvette Museum is located. And since Mike, my hubby, is a car nut, we made it a husband/wife getaway, with each of us doing something we both love. What a win-win!

The drive was pretty and took about 4.5 hours. It rained most of our journey, but it wasn’t a hard downpour, it was more of a soft spring rain.

 

 

 

 

 

SOKY is held at the Western Kentucky University conference center, a nice facility with plenty of restrooms and sitting areas to sit and rest or figure out who to see next.

The book fest is free for attendees, but you have to buy any books you want signed- you can’t bring books from home. It is a nice setup and well organized. The organizers give you a newspaper insert and it lists all the authors and their table number, the times of workshops and when/where any author signings are.

Some Authors I Met at SOKY 2017

That Saturday morning I had the chance to meet several inspirational authors including Kristy Cambron (new to me, writes WWII related books), Colleen Coble (I have read Coble’s Rock Harbor series and loved them), Denise Hunter (new to me, plus I learned two of her books have become Hallmark movies!), Cara Putman (also new to me). They were all nice and easy to talk to, and encouraging to me as a newbie to the author life. Very exciting stuff!

I met a few other authors which I will talk about in Part Two next week.

 

 

 

 

I bought several books and had them all signed. Then I attended a panel on why romance is one of the most popular genres. According to the authors who spoke, romance appeals to readers because we all want to be loved, and in case of inspirational romance, we all need hope. It was an interesting talk with inspiring personal stories from the authors as well as how each started their writing careers.

Book Sale!

Later that day, my husband and I went to Half Price Book Store, and would you believe they were having a $1 sale? Everything in the store was only a dollar! This was right up my alley. I found additional books by some of the authors I had just met that morning, a writing book, books for my kids, a couple of Agatha Christie paperbacks and more. My husband found some country music CDs, and a couple books on NASCAR for a friend. We had a blast. Who can pass up a dollar sale on books?? Not me! 🙂

It was a great weekend all in all, despite the cooler temps and the rain. We left the kiddos at home, so it was almost like a mini-honeymoon for us. My hubby also bought a raffle ticket to win a new Corvette, I’ll keep you posted. 🙂

Happy reading!

~~Michelle