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 The New Mexico Writers annual dinner, where NMBA will have its display, brings established and aspiring writers together to celebrate and inspire each other and serves to celebrate each year’s NMW grant recipients. April 25th, 2024 5:00 p.m. - 10:30 p.m. La Fonda on the Plaza, 100 E San Francisco St., Santa Fe, NM, 87501  Our NMBA display at the Santa Fe International Literary Festival, will be set up for the New Mexico Writers "catered" breakfast at the Convention Center on Saturday, May 18th and may remain for the duration of the Festival. Any NMBA author whose work is displayed may attend the breakfast by joining the NMW ($30/year). Display books will be donated to New Mexico libraries by NMW after the Festival.
May 18th-May 19th, 2024 8:00 a.m.-7:30 p.m. Santa Fe Community Convention Center, 201 W Marcy st., Santa Fe, NM 87501
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 The successful “Meet the Authors” collaboration between the New Mexico Book Association and Garcia Street Books has resumed for the 2024 season. On the first Saturday of the month, the bookstore sets up a table for up to 3 authors in the portal in front of the store. Authors bring their own books to the table; when a customer buys a book, Garcia Street Books rings up the sale. Authors get 60% of the cover price for each book sold, paid in cash after the event, and may consign a book to be displayed in the bookstore.
Our first table on March 2 featured authors Nancy de Young and Vijali Hamilton. The April 6 table will showcase authors Claude Phipps, Mike Kimmel, and collaborators Melanie Faithful and Sally Kruse. The bookstore plans to continue the tables through October, and we will soon look for participants for future dates. If you’re interested in being a part of “Meet the Authors,” watch for an email and respond promptly: Spaces are limited, and authors are usually chosen in the order that we receive their applications. Note: This event is for authors new to the store. Authors whose books are already on sale at Garcia Street Books are not eligible – including authors who appeared on a previous “Meet the Authors” table. All authors must be current members of NMBA to participate.
 Early Sunday afternoon I left NMBA Booth #150, pulling a wagonload of books and display signs to the Indie Pavilion for Fiction and Nonfiction Authors. (Indie authors are those who have been published by a publisher who is not one of the Big Five: Simon & Schuster, Penguin Random House, Harper Collins, Hachette Book Group, and Macmillan.) Notified in December that my memoir, Banged-Up Heart, had been selected for the Pavilion, I arrived with books in hand and registered off-site on Friday, selecting my table in the Pavilion based only on the fact that the sun wouldn’t be in my eyes. Hours later, when I found the Indie Pavilion, I discovered two huge barrels of water adjacent to my table, anchoring the Pavilion tent. Thinking they might block me from the view of walkers passing by, I wished I’d selected another table.
Fortunately, they weren’t a deterrent. Much to my surprise and delight, Ursula whom I’d met the day before while waiting in line to hear three authors discuss “The GOP’s Evolving Base,” brought a clutch of friends to meet me. Turned out it was her Tucson book club. When one of them asked if I would return to Tucson to discuss my book with them, I told her about the Sedona book club that had visited me in Santa Fe. “Let’s take a trip to Santa Fe to see Shirley and discuss her book,” she crowed. “That would be great!” I said. “You should feel good about being in the Indie Pavilion,” Hillary, the Indie honcho said when I introduced myself. “We had 220 submissions for 100 spots. And most of them were memoir and poetry. Of course, we couldn’t have just memoir and poetry because we wanted a diverse representation of Indie authors. So, we had to make tough decisions.” “I was surprised my book was selected because it’s seven years old,” I said. “There was a SNAFU on our part. Every submission was supposed to have been published in the last two years but that copy got inexplicably dropped. So, Shirley, you should feel really good.” I did, and I do. Being selected for the Indie Pavilion was an honor, not to mention an opportunity to sell a few books. I would encourage authors to keep an eye on the Tucson Festival of Books website and submit their books when submissions for 2025 open up. The NM Book Association recently participated in the Tucson Festival of Books, held on the University of Arizona campus on March 9-10, 2024. The festival is a major annual event in Tucson and draws over 100,000 attendees. This is our third year in a row of exhibiting at the festival. Our total sales this year were a little better than last year’s, but, as usual, they varied greatly, and many authors sold only one book or none at all. However, this isn’t conclusive: We handed out dozens of flyers with the QR Code and website address for our online catalog, as well as NMBA business cards and SWBDA contest brochures. Authors and publishers may hear from potential customers in the future, and NMBA may gain contest entries and new members.
Some general observations: It’s impossible to predict which books will sell and which won’t. Last year we were asked for books in a couple of genres that we didn’t have. This year we had them, but they didn’t sell! Authors who volunteer at the show have an advantage because they can bring extra copies of their books to sell. Our best-selling authors were volunteers who sold out their original 5 copies, and a few more. But all our volunteers did their best to sell everyone’s books, not just their own. Participating in the Indie Author Pavilion is a good way to boost sales. This requires a separate application through the Festival website, and costs a small fee, but NMBA shared the information in advance of the deadline. In general, customers like to interact with authors who are enthusiastic about their books and willing to talk about them, so going to a show is always a good idea. Emails have gone out to everyone who participated. Authors who sold books at the show received a summary of their sales, and they can choose to be paid through PayPal or to receive a check in the mail. As for books that didn’t sell, we can store them for our next sales event, or, if notified in advance, we can bring them to our next in-person luncheon.  Eric Paul Shaffer, Shirley Melis, and Susan Weeks with customers. Photo by Jordan Jones. Many thanks to the volunteers who worked at the show. A special shout-out to Roxanne Howe-Murphy and Jack Meyer, who helped to load into the booth on a rainy morning (luckily, we had beautiful weather for the rest of the weekend!), and to Jack, Shirley Melis, Jordan Jones, and Leslie Stalhut, who packed up the booth while the Booth Chair was stuck in a long line of cars trying to get in. And thanks again to Anna Sochocky for collecting books before the show, Jordan for designing the booth banner and tracking entries and payments (and just about everything else), and Frank Hirsch for moral support.
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