Printer’s Row Lit Fest 2025 was LIT
Printer’s Row Lit Fest was the biggest event of my author career and I am already excited and impatiently waiting for 2026…
The Printers Row Lit Fest, the largest free outdoor literary showcase in the Midwest, is a community-based celebration for book lovers presented by the not-for-profit Near South Planning Board. Learn more at: https://printersrowlitfest.org/
On the first weekend of August, I got an email that literally made me jump up and down, screaming and clapping— a spot opened up at the last minute for Printer’s Row Lit Fest in Chicago (set for September), and it was waiting for me!!! Fast forward through a month of chaos and panic after realizing I was entirely unprepared for an event of 10,000-20,000 readers, and the weekend was here.
During August, I was able to get my hands on just over 100 wholesale copies of my books and tons of bookmarks made (which I originally was slowly going to release around the holidays). While only having just over 100 books was not ideal and turned out not to be enough (as I suspected), it still went really well, and I am forever thankful to past me for making a Kindle QR code sign which did get me several Kindle sales that weekend!
Printer’s Row was spectacular. I had a sidewalk table, which was great and really affordable for me, and it put me right in front of folks wandering around. I was entirely shocked that the majority of shoppers wanted paperbacks, which was new to me because the majority of people at prior events had preferred hardbacks. But, after talking to people about it, it made sense why paperbacks were the preferred choice. A lot of people only had one tote to fill and carry all day, so they did not want heavy books, hardcovers have gone up price wise (trust me, I try to make them as cheap as possible, blame the trees and printers), and a lot of folks flew in for the event and only brought a carry-on with them and the hardcovers were too heavy.
Saturday, I honestly don’t remember anything from because I was such an anxious mess (aside from struggling over sidewalks with my cart full of books while trying to get there… Chicago, please fix your sidewalks!) and was so exhausted after “people-ing” all day. All I remember of Saturday was that the energy was immaculate, as was the weather; sales were awesome, and I met countless people I wish I could be friends with!
I ended up selling out of my paperbacks a few hours into day two (Sunday) and made small sales that day because of that (I averaged 6-7 books per hour on Saturday), but I still sold over 90 books in total! It was also so fun to get to talk to a huge crowd of potential readers about the series, politics in reading, diversity in reading, and, of course, our undying hope for fascism to end in real life, just as it does in our favorite books.
I ended the event with a huge struggle to get my cart into the parking garage where my car was, and, because I am clumsy and dumb, I ended up severely injuring my bad knee again. I now have a displaced kneecap, torn meniscus, and two torn ligaments on the exterior of my knee…. yay me. For those curious, I am in between MRI appointments and follow-up appointments, but it is looking like I will finally be getting surgery on this bad knee that never healed right from a five-year-old injury. A needed surgery was not what I hoped to gain from this event, but the universe works in mysterious ways…
Watch the full vlog and hang out with me during the fest below…
