Our Book Festival Setups

And our experience at the Fairyland Children's Book Festival

We were both lucky enough to be invited to attend the Fairyland Children’s Book Festival in Oakland, California last weekend along with over 30 other amazing creators.

Today we’re sharing how we set up our tables and some thoughts about how the day went.

Our Tables

The 6ft tables were all covered with a black tablecloth and set under a very welcome pop-up shade along with a couple of chairs. We had an hour and ten minutes at our tables (which flew by!) and before and after our session we were invited to have drinks and snacks in the VIP area which was a lovely touch.

Christine: I set up my table with a sign with my name, photo, book covers and a QR code (I didn’t see anyone scan it). I also had copies of my books, postcards, some swag (bookmarks and stickers), and an activity. I actually had three activities since I brought backups but I put out my friendship bracelet activity first (pipe cleaners and pony beads so even the smallest hands could manage it) and that seemed to be the right call as I had a crowd at my table for most of the event!

Thanks to a tip from

Julie Falatko

I put post-it notes on my books with a short description of each one so people could see if it was something they’d be interested in.

My postcards and bookmarks were from Vistaprint and my stickers from Stickerapp. I bought the perspex sign holders and the book stands from Amazon.

Vicky:

After attending festivals last year that did NOT cover their tables at all, I invested in my own table covering (via Vistaprint) to make my table look a little more polished. I also purchased book stands, which is much nicer than trying to prop up all your books by themselves.

These days, I tend to not bring all of my books, because I don’t want to overwhelm visitors and also because I knew the bookstore wouldn’t be carrying them all. So I picked a mix of my newer titles and ones I thought people might recognize to draw interest. I also brought a craft! Because AVA LIN has a special notebook that she decorates with a very special gemstone in the first book, I brought little notebooks and gemstone stickers for kids to decorate.

Example decorated notebook

To be honest, I was a little nervous, because kids seemed a little TOO excited about my craft, so I feared I would run out of supplies and they would never look at the books, but I think it turned out okay, as parents would chat with me while their kids made notebooks and I had just enough books—twenty-five, in case you’re wondering. Plus, I had some bookmarks with a character from my upcoming graphic novel series, ONE MAD CAT (which releases in 2026—I know, I’m very early on this but I got tired of printing new bookmarks all the time) and one girl made the first fan art of the character!

My first fan art of ONE MAD CAT!

What About Book Sales?

Thanks to the festival’s partnership with Books on B we didn’t have to sell our own books. It was fun to make book sales and sign books for the young readers that we met!

These festivals are also a great way to make personal connections with readers. Many of the parents who brought their kids were book fans, including teachers and librarians. It’s lovely to support a community event and to hang out in a beautiful setting with fellow authors and illustrators. It can sometimes be a challenge to balance events, but this one was a lovely one to attend!