It has been a good 20 or 30 years since I attended a coin
show, but when I decided to go to one while on vacation in Florida recently, I
found a correlation to book fairs.

The coin show set-up is universal and timeless.
Not much has changed from when I attended my first show at around age 10 or 12
in late 1970s Brooklyn. Coin sellers sit side by side to form rows of intimate
retailers, a bunch of poker tables housing thousands of dollars of treasures
and gems, manned by aging enthusiasts trying to appeal to elderly numismatists
seeking to complete a private collection or to uncover an underpriced gem.

Coin shows now effectively take place in
transactions online, usually on ebay and amazon. But for real people to gather
in person, where coins can be inspected, touched, and allowed to shine, is
still special. To be at the show has a social element; online feels cold,
anonymous, and business-cold.

I just
turned 57 and may have been the youngest person in attendance at this coin
show, held at the Polish Club in Palm Beach County. The crowd was old, almost
all men, and all white. If the coin collecting hobby is to grow, it needs an
infusion of youth, diversity, and women.

Generation Alpha and Gen Z collect things — but
they are all digital. Their social media is a scrapbooked archive. They
bookmark favorite sites, save their musical playlists on spotify, and
essentially know how to search for anything that they want to see. I grew up in
a tactile world, before computers, smart phones, and the Internet turned our
physical world into an invisible, virtual one. Our youth is more likely to
collect NFT’s than anything you can hang, touch, or display. They are more
curious about Bitcoin rather than to collect real coins.

The coin booths resembled each other at first,
but upon closer inspection, you come to see that the vendors who sell tend to:

* Differentiate their offerings
* Engage people who enter their air space
* Make a good presentation visually
* Be flexible on  pricing
* Offer bulk deals
* Tell a good story

Perhaps authors can learn from what goes on at a
coin show and find a way to peddle their wares successfully.

Need PR Help?

Brian
Feinblum, the founder of this award-winning blog, with 3.6 million page views,
can be reached at 
[email protected]  He is available to help authors promote their story,
sell their book, and grow their brand. He has over 30 years of experience in
successfully helping thousands of authors in all genres. Let him be your
advocate, teacher, and motivator!

 

About Brian
Feinblum

Brian Feinblum should be
followed on
www.linkedin.com/in/brianfeinblum. This is
copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog ©2024. Born and raised in Brooklyn, he now
resides in Westchester with his wife, two kids, and Ferris, a black lab rescue
dog, and El Chapo, a pug rescue dog. His writings are often featured in The
Writer and IBPA’s The Independent.  This
award-winning blog has generated over 3.9 million pageviews. With 4,900+ posts
over the past dozen years, it was named one of the best book marketing blogs by
BookBaby 
http://blog.bookbaby.com/2013/09/the-best-book-marketing-blogs  and recognized by Feedspot in 2021 and 2018
as one of the top book marketing blogs. It was also named by
www.WinningWriters.com as a “best resource.” For the past three decades,
including 21 years as the head of marketing for the nation’s largest book
publicity firm, and director of publicity positions at two independent presses,
Brian has worked with many first-time, self-published, authors of all genres,
right along with best-selling authors and celebrities such as: Dr. Ruth, Mark
Victor Hansen, Joseph Finder, Katherine Spurway, Neil Rackham, Harvey Mackay,
Ken Blanchard, Stephen Covey, Warren Adler, Cindy Adams, Todd Duncan, Susan
RoAne, John C. Maxwell, Jeff Foxworthy, Seth Godin, and Henry Winkler. He
hosted a panel on book publicity for Book Expo America several years ago, and
has spoken at ASJA, Independent Book Publishers Association Sarah Lawrence
College, Nonfiction Writers Association, Cape Cod Writers Association,
Willamette (Portland) Writers Association, APEX, Morgan James Publishing, and
Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association. His letters-to-the-editor have
been published in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, New York Post, NY
Daily News, Newsday, The Journal News
(Westchester) and The Washington
Post
. His first published book was The Florida Homeowner, Condo, &
Co-Op Association Handbook
.  It was featured
in The Sun Sentinel and Miami Herald.