Book Fair Virgins (When You’re There!)

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

At The London Book Fair

The week before the fair I was involved in a minor car crash, which meant I had to wear a neck brace and take a concoction of fairly strong and possibly hallucinogenic (was Paul Daniels really there?) painkillers during the fair itself.

Now whilst this meant I was quite unforgettable (short, blonde and wearing a neck brace tends to get your remembered) I was also a little spaced out. Perhaps next year I’ll just go for a pirate’s eye patch!

Anyway – here are my tips for when you’re there!

1. 

   Parties – go to every party you’re invited to and gate crash those you’re not! (That’s my advice for life as well as book fairs.) They are great opportunities to network, make friends and meet people who are otherwise fully booked during the “working” day.

2. Make other people feel comfortable and help out – this is especially important if you’re sharing a stand. Bryony Doran (www.bryonydoran.com) was a great help to me, telling people what we published whilst I was off chatting up short magicians – “not a lot” – I might add!
3. Share information and resources – publishing is a great business to be in, none of us are in competition. I really enjoyed sharing snippets with Yvonne Barlow (www.booklinethinker.com) and Ann & Peter (www.petanpublishing.co.uk). And we all enjoyed playing with my Sony e-reader!
   
4. Make the most of the meetings – be prepared for meetings with buyers or suppliers. Have marketing materials prepared, be specific with your questions, be punctual and succinct, respect!

Book Fair Follow Up

I waited 3 weeks till after the fair before I followed up with people. This was to give them time to recover from the madness of the book fair (and time for me to recover), before bombarding them with more questions. Some actions will need to be completed much faster than that!

1. Send polite emails thanking people for their time and reminding them of any actions outstanding. This is where the neck brace was very handy: “I was the one with the neck brace…”
2. Follow up on any tasks you promised – send those books, make the networking connection, send the rejection letters…
3. Debrief any staff or accomplices – thank them and ask what they thought.

Review

This is also a good time to review your goals, understand what went well, what could have gone better and determine how successful the event was for you – overall.

Planning For The Future

Based on your success you can now start planning for the next book fair or event. Make notes of everything you learned, what worked, what didn’t. Put tasks in your calendar and remember to give yourself 6 months to get ready.

In the next article we’ll look at specific lessons learned and what I’ll do differently next time!

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