Book Fair Virgins (Before You Go)

How To Survive, Stay Alive and Perhaps Even Thrive at Your First Book Fair

The London Book Fair 2009 was my first time.

Of course, I knew the bigger publishers went to the fair. And I knew that all the suppliers would exhibit at the fair. And from all accounts, the scary buyers from bookshops would be there too! But would my small publishing business gain any benefit from exhibiting there?

Being a Lean Marketer exhibitions are usually way down on my list of marketing activities, often consigned to the “waste money” category of recreational marketing. So to make it into a “must do” activity I needed to do some thinking and planning.

I had goals for this fair – I wanted…

• to better understand the right’s buying process
• to meet some of our authors (I work remotely from a cave in Spain)
• to network with other small publishers
• to meet the scary buyers!

So, using our Lean Marketing Detox Tools to determine if a marketing activity is worthwhile  I spent a little time calculating the costs of achieving these goals and the “pain vs gain” for different approaches. My options were:

1. Go to the London Book Fair
2. Do everything online (some of my goals couldn’t be achieved this way)
3. Split the tasks over the year (this would have involved several trips and meetings and would take a whole year)
4. Do nothing at all! (very little effort required but wouldn’t help achieve any of those goals!)

At the end of the exercise it was a no-brainer, I was going to the London Book Fair! You can get the complete set of Detox tools for free by clicking the image below…

Pre-Fair Planning

The sooner you start planning (I suggest 6 months in advance) the better. I had 2 months to get everything ready, and this just wasn’t enough time. Whilst I’m a strong believer in Just In Time Marketing (hey, we made that term up, so of course I believe in it!), planning for the London Book Fair had my nerves jangling as I worried I’d be showing buyers a scrappy photocopy of our catalogue and sleeping in a wheelie bin!

Deciding on what stand to book can cause you to have heart failure when you see the pricing structure. There was no way our budget would stretch to even the smallest space. I needed a more competitive solution.

Fear!

My overwhelming concerns about exhibiting at the London Book Fair ultimately boiled down to fear!

1. Would I waste our small marketing budget by going to the London Book Fair?
2. Would I look foolish talking to buyers, suppliers and other publishers?
3. Would I get lost in London (well, that was almost a dead cert!)?

The Independent Publishers Guild

I love the IPG – www.IPG.uk.com. I wasn’t a member until I decided to exhibit at the London Book Fair. Whilst researching online I found that the IPG “sublets” stand space to their members. Fantastic, we could book a shelf, get the assistance of the IPG and have loads of meetings arranged for us. Plus, we get regular newsletters and updates on current issues. And if we were in the UK we’d be able to go to meet the buyer meetings!

The IPG set up the stand, receive delivery of your books and marketing materials, put your books out on the shelves, arrange meetings with buyers, run around and generally take care of all the little things. They are a super gang, and I’d like to thank them for all their hard work!

The only drawback is that stand space can be cramped and desks and chairs are at a premium. The party was good though!

Marketing Materials

I had our catalogue stored on pen drives and a bookmark sized business card enclosed in a silver envelope – with some sweeties. Hopefully these stand out when people are going through their mountain of materials when they get back to the office.

Many of the publishers commented on my “business cards”, which were ½ A5 portrait shaped bookmarks. Joe Gregory designed them – and here’s what they looked like…

You can use your local printer but we used www.vistaprint.co.uk – because they’re fast and relatively cheap!

What Books To Show

Deciding what books to take when space is at a premium can be tricky. If you’re a one-book publisher, then it’s probably best if you take that book! Otherwise my suggestion is to take your best sellers and most recent titles (unless you have a specific plan).

Arranging Meetings and Planning my Time

There appears to be a kind of hierarchy or class system in play in the publishing business. I hadn’t been aware of this until I tried to arrange meetings. I was obviously well down the pecking order and was rather put out about it. None of the people I contacted through the London Book Fair meetings system even replied to me. I found this rude and surprising.

I was even more dismayed when I realised how many people requested meetings with me that I hadn’t replied to!

In my enthusiasm for arranging meetings that suited my agenda I neglected basic business etiquette. I hope I’ve now contacted everyone and made amends. Perhaps karma will ensure I get responses from those people I contacted!

In the next article we’ll look at what happened when I was there and some lessons learned!

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