Talking about Los Angeles......

I’ve been taking the past few days searching the Internet for any mention of the L.A. Black Book Expo. Apart from a few blog entries, there hasn’t been the sort of coverage we received after the 2007 LABBX where we appeared in the California section of the Los Angeles Times. (it’s on the Expo’s website) In fact, I don’t think there was one reporter who was hand to cover our event last Saturday, although I did send pictures at the request of one of the newspapers I do know. It’s not a big deal, but I think our book events need better exposure from media or else it becomes a constant challenge to promote our events if no one knows about them.

This isn’t just about LABBX, mind you, but the few literary venues I’ve been a part of for years now. In 2001, one of the local Los Angeles television stations had a camera crew film the Black Writers on Tour. The Leimert Park Book Fair successfully has coverage from one of the other news stations while we’ve been fortunate to be covered by the L.A. Times and the Black Writers Festival at the Promenade at Howard Hughes Center is mentioned on a local radio station from time to time. While each of our venues has had success in getting the public out via media, we lack the follow up on who attended as far as guests, what discussions were held, activities for the children, etc. It’s not the media’s fault though, we just have to do a better job in promotion and instead of focusing on one area, aim to make it as general to the public as possible.

No doubt we should inform our community first of our literary events, but in the past month I received phone calls from individuals who wanted to know about the admission fee (free), parking, and programs at the Expo. They were interested and I was glad to know there was interest outside the community. Of course, when you have a media partner like KPFK, which has been an Expo partner for the entire five years, it’s easy to advertise. When you deal with other sources of media, the financial resources are scarce for packages with PSA’s unless you have funds saved up for that reason alone.

I remember when the Black Writers on Tour was mentioned on radio a week before it actually happened, which brought in a huge crowd. In recent years, you don’t hear about it as much anymore, making a big difference in the diminished size of attendance. In 2007, the Black Writers Festival had the misfortune of being held the same weekend as the heavily promoted Taste of Soul, which drew significant more crowds on Crenshaw than it did at the Promenade. The major differences were the Taste of Soul had influential backers who promoted their festival for weeks, while the Black Writers Festival didn’t have the vast resources of its counterpart. Plus, you would hear about Taste of Soul at least four times a day, and as we know once you hear something over and over and over, people will come out due to the curiosity factor.

The solution is we have to apply the same method our authors use in the promotion of their books, and use it for our events. For example, I’ve learned by making ‘commercials’ for LABBX over the web and going to the major sites like MySpace and Facebook, it drew attention and made people aware of us. The L.A. Times Festival of Books is successful because a) the Times is the host and b) their parent company, Tribune also owns KTLA which helps with print and video advertisements. Saying that, we also have to adapt the same strategy in sending press releases constantly to newspapers, newsletters, any medium that can draw a crowd. You have to mix traditional media with the new and hope for the best.

What this year has proven is that those literary events modest with their budget, their expectations and size of audience will succeed. However, the follow up is the most important as well. That’s where mailing lists, newsletters and ‘pounding the pavement’ helps to keep the word going. Video clips and audio from the past event is a definite plus. There’s a lot we can do thanks to this technology, but if we keep relying on just the traditional forms of media to help spread the word without utilizing the tools we do have, we’ll always come up short and our targeted crowds, even more so.

This is only one part of it, but there's so much more to talk about, which I'll discuss later. Take care.

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