The weekend of July 17 and 18, Feminist Book Club had the incredible opportunity to celebrate the queer community at Twin Cities Pride. This year marks the first time that Feminist Book Club has had a booth at the festival and over 170,000 people were estimated to be in attendance at Loring Park in Minneapolis.
about our booth
The Feminist Book Club booth had a beautiful purple canopy that was framed with ribbons in FBC colors of purple, yellow, and pink. Our booth had two tables that were full of the products and books that we brought along with us. We had two bookshelves full of books, both nonfiction and fiction, arranged in a rainbow fashion. We also had an assortment of products that we brought along with us for Pride visitors to browse. The big draw of the Feminist Book Club booth was our Mega Box Giveaway which included products such as FBC socks, Pisqueya sauce, A Fink & Ink stickers, and more. What is even more special with our Mega Box Giveaway was that the box included the hot new release One Last Stop. While our older visitors were drawn to the Mega Box Giveaway on the pedestal, our youngest visitors were able to look through the picture books on display.
Through our Mega Box Giveaway we were able to have an immense number of people sign up for our email list with interest in joining our monthly subscription.
Popular Book purchases
The most popular items at the booth were the free stickers and bookmarks that Renee was advertising as “free 99.” Most visitors were interested in the pitch about Feminist Book Club and how we are quite special, so visitors picked up stickers and bookmarks to remember the booth they had visited.
As for the most popular purchases that visitors used money for, there were definite favorites among the books and products selected. The most popular books that people picked up were One Last Stop, Kindred, Disability Visibility, The Body is Not An Apology, and Fierce Fairytales. When visitors asked for recommendations, I tended to recommend One Last Stop and Kindred, while Renee was highly suggesting Disability Visibility and The Body is Not An Apology.
I also was pushing the children’s books pretty heavily because there were a sweet number of families visiting Pride for the weekend and, hello!, I’m a kindergarten teacher! The children’s books people were most excited to see were Julián is a Mermaid, Shirley Chisholm is a Verb, and Alma and How She Got Her Name. As a kindergarten teacher, children’s books are a topic that I am very passionate about so getting to share my love of these books with families for the weekend was a dream.
Popular product purchases
Along with books, we brought a great deal of products that were featured in previous Feminist Book Club boxes. Out of all the products that we brought with us, Pride visitors really loved the Rutabaga Bodega postcards from our July box, the “Dangerously Well Read” pins, and the Rhino Parade patches that said “The Patriarchy’s Worst Nightmare.”
Although the candles that we brought were not as big of a seller, we got many compliments on how great our booth smelled. So we’ll consider that a win, especially when it was so hot!
Visitors were very impressed by how Feminist Book Club is dedicated to sourcing our products from only women and queer owned businesses which translated well with people wanting to sign up for a monthly box!
