How to grow your reader email list at a book signing

Picture a Saturday afternoon signing at an independent bookstore. Forty people come, and most of them buy the book. You sign, you chat for thirty seconds each, someone takes a photo, and the line moves. By five o'clock the chairs are stacked, the store has forty sales on its register, and you have a sign-up sheet with eleven names on it, three of them unreadable. If you want to grow your reader email list at a book signing, the line is where the time is. People stand in it for ten or twenty minutes with their phones already out.

Textiful turns that wait into a sign-up. A sign on the table says "Text CHAPTER to 33777 for the first chapter of the next book," with a QR code beside it. Readers text while they wait, give their email, and the chapter is in their inbox before they reach you.

The problem with the signing table

The reader at a signing has just shown more interest than any reader ever will: they came out, waited, and bought a copy. Then the transaction ends at the register, and the bookstore keeps the customer record. Your publisher doesn't get it either.

The sign-up sheet on the table is the traditional fix, and it works poorly. It sits beside the stack of books and the pen you're signing with, so readers either skip it or scribble an address with one hand while holding their book in the other. You type up the sheet that night and guess at half of it.

And your next launch starts from whoever you can reach. Readers who met you in person are the ones most likely to buy the next book, and they're the ones you have no way to tell about it.

Why the usual fixes fall short

• A clipboard on the table collects the readers who notice it, in handwriting you have to read.
• "Find me online" asks readers to remember your website after they've gone home.
• Social follows reach readers only when the platform shows them your post.
• A bookmark with your newsletter URL depends on the reader typing it in later.
• A QR code to a sign-up form works, but a form is a lot to fill in while holding a book in a moving line.

How to fix it with Textiful

1. Upload the chapter to Handouts as a PDF and start from the "Give away a download" template. It asks for an email and a name and emails the file when they finish. For one question only, delete the name step.
2. Pick a keyword readers can see and say. CHAPTER, your series name, or the book title if it's short. One keyword is included on every plan (more are $10/month). Each is unique on its short code, so if yours is taken on 33777, try 55444. See keywords.
3. Add a free QR code for the sign. It starts a copy of the same flow and counts its own scans. Download it as an SVG so it prints sharp. See QR codes.
4. Connect your list. Add the "Add to Kit" or "Add to Mailchimp" step and a tag for the event, such as the store and the date. Your launch emails can then thank the readers from this signing separately from everyone else.
5. Print the sign. The offer first, in large type, then the keyword and the QR code. A table tent read from 1 to 2 feet away needs a code about 2 to 3 inches wide. How to design a QR code sign covers layout and testing.

Where to put the sign

At the front of the line, not on the signing table. The table is where readers are talking to you, and the line is where they're waiting with nothing to do. Ask the store if you can put a sign on a stand where the line starts, and a second one on the table for the readers who come straight to you.

If you give a reading or a short talk before signing, say it out loud at the end: "If you'd like the first chapter of the next book, text CHAPTER to 33777. It'll be in your inbox before you get to the front of the line." Say it twice.

Add a signed-copy giveaway

At a festival, a library talk, or any event where most people won't buy at the table, a giveaway gets more readers to text in. Use the "Run a giveaway" template: it asks for a first name and an email, then enters each reader once. Announce a time, draw the winner in Textiful, and it can text the winner.

You can also keep the chapter offer and run the giveaway as a second flow on a second QR code. The two report separately, so you'll see which one brought in more readers. Check the rules for running a giveaway where you are with someone qualified. More ideas are in running a giveaway to grow an email list.

Before and after

	Sign-up sheet on the table	QR code and keyword on a sign in the line
When readers sign up	While you're signing their book	While they wait in line
What they give you	Handwriting you have to read	An email they typed themselves
What they get	A spot on a list	The chapter, in their inbox before they reach you
Where they go	A spreadsheet you type up that night	Kit or Mailchimp, tagged with the event
Your next launch	Starts from your social following	Starts from readers who met you

Who this is for, and who should skip it

It fits fiction and nonfiction authors in the US who do signings, readings, library visits, festivals, and conventions, and self-published authors who sell at markets. To reach readers who never come to an event, see putting a QR code in your book.

Skip it if you rarely do events, or if most of your signings are outside the US, where the short codes don't work. Plans start from $19/month, and you pay per conversation: one per reader who starts the flow. See pricing and the authors guide.

Try it at your next event → Start a free trial