Testing, mailing list, and betas

I loved the episode on testing! Even before that, I was planning on doing some market testing. I have a lot of ideas for my fantasy world, not all of them are essential to the main plot arc but do add texture, flavor, depth, and hopefully likeable characters readers would like to see again. I have a very large series mapped out but if people really aren’t interested in something, I’d rather not spend the time on it.

I’m planning on having a booth at a local festival in a couple weeks and again at a SF convention in October. I will be offering sample chapters/stories that I have for 3 of the books in exchange for emails. I will also have an overview book with AI covers (thank you Thomas) of the whole series along with the back cover blurbs of each book (again, thank you Thomas for teaching me how to write a decent blurb). I will be asking which covers/concepts they think are most interesting and if there are any that do not interest them. I will give out only one physical sample per email but will email them all the rest of the samples. I am also asking for reader feedback on the samples and inviting people to be part of my beta reading group. I will be selling the overview book for $4 because this thing is expensive. I will also launch it on Amazon the weekend of the festival if anybody wants to buy it there for $10. I also plan on getting feedback about different publishing options such as Royal Road. And I have a bookmark pointing to my website and a few coloring pages (again, thank you Thomas!) to see if anybody is interested in those. My son says not. I say I don’t know but I’d like to find out.

Has anybody done anything like this before? Are there any suggestions? My wife says that I’m barking up the wrong tree with the festival and that no fantasy readers will be there. I strongly disagree because I see fantasy books at a lot of yard sales around here and this festival is very popular with everybody.

I’m really excited about this. I love working a booth. I see the festival as a trial run for the convention.

I’m eager to read your thoughts and comments!

Per Malm