The London Bookfair

I was at the Bookfair yesterday and it was markedly different from last year when the ash cloud had kept a huge number of overseas visitors and exhibitors at home. Although this did mean that you could manage to walk between stands in less than the ten minutes it seems to take when it is heaving, it was nice to see the buzz back yesterday.

As I wondered the aisles I made a note of a few alternative prizes I might like to award. They are as follows:

Most extravagant (and maybe a little ridiculous) stand: Goes to - Hachette!

It has two floors! And therefore a staircase! It is bigger than my house!

Best find of the day: Goes to - the ladies loos at the far end of EC2. Clean, big and virtually empty. None of the squashing and squeezing that goes on in the EC1 loos. It's worth the walk.

Most enterprising author award: Goes to - Dr Peter Altman who was wearing a t-shirt that was printed front and back with 'Wanted! Publisher for my popular science book' and then listed his name and number. 

Platform 9 and 3/4 award: Goes to - Stand J200. I searched for ages and never found this stand which is a shame as it had two indies on it that I was hoping to see. Short of running into the wall à la Harry Potter I'm not sure where else I could have looked!

The award for taking the most circuitous route to anywhere they wanted to go: Goes to - me! My route round the fair must have looked something like this:

And finally a top tip for your visit: The small/indie publishers have much nicer freebies!

The Brighton Book Festival

Another project I am working on at the moment is the Brighton Book Festival (9-12 June). The Festival is planned to be a community-based event which hopes to bring book lovers together to share their passion for books and writing. We've dubbed it Bookstock and we're hoping to capture that laid back Woodstock feel and I'm helping to organise some of the events.

I'm looking after the Publishing and Self-Publishing theme and have just listed a book discussion, a poetry reading, a Write Your Book session and a Publish Your Book session. Have a look at the site for more information and to book tickets. There's more being listed all the time (I have a couple of great events that I am waiting to finalise) so do check back or sign up to the mailing list.

I'm running the Get Your Book Published session so you can find information on this and other events I am running or participating in on my site too.

If you're in the area and you'd like to be involved please get in touch. The Festival is growing all the time and welcomes everyone!

Contradictions within the Industry

All from the Bookseller in the last couple of days:

Trade experiences worst March since 2005

Sales soar in Mothers' Day week

Penguin Group Chief Exec takes home £1.5 million

What does that tell us about the state of the industry?

Here Comes the Sun

So today is supposed to be the hottest day of the year so far. Well I don't want to hear that when I'm stuck at my desk thank you very much! I have a book deadline for the end of this week (which has already been extended twice of course) and I wish I could make myself type super-fast so I could have some time in the garden later. Here's hoping...

Get a Grip, People!

In May of last year I happened upon a blog that really made sense to me. I'm not always convinced by self-help but I liked the tone of this one. The first post I read went like this:


Give Yourself Permission

Not just to fail, but to do anything you like. Give yourself permission to go out and get smashed. Give yourself permission to have a duvet day or pull a sickie.

It’s OK. The world will not fall apart.

If you harbor guilt and you’re looking over your shoulder, you’re not looking in front of you.

So what do you want to do? You want to say to your wife “Listen, I’m going out with the boys”? Say it. MTFU and give yourself permission.

You want to tell your husband “I don’t feel like cooking for you tonight?” Don’t say that. Say “I’m not cooking for you tonight.”

You asked yourself, so you asked all the people that mattered, and they said it was OK.

The only person that matters is you.

Give yourself permission.

Idealistic? Maybe. Achievable? Why not? Whatever, it made me think, and something about that simple instruction to actually do what we already know we should do appealed to me.  So I began to follow How to Get a Grip and  found plenty more of this simple, straight-forward advice.  I thought it would make a great book and before long was in touch with the author of the blog and we'd cooked up a plan to take the greatest bits of How to Get a Grip (the blog) and turn it into the only self-help book you'll ever need. 

And here it is:

Matthew Kimberley is the considerable force behind the blog and the book and he tells you more about it here:

Quick - do as he says - Now!

1. Order your copies at Amazon.co.uk if you’re in the UK.

2. If you’re not in the UK, order your copies at the Book Depository.

3. “Like” the book’s Facebook page:

4. Click here to tweet about this post.

5. Leave your review somewhere we can read it.

THANK YOU

Publishing

The last book I commissioned before leaving my previous job was published earlier this year. Confessions of a GP has done very well and I'm proud to have commissioned it. But that was a long time ago and I've missed the thrill of having a box of newly-printed books arrive. However, just this week I enjoyed the smell of a newly-printed book again. One that will be published on Monday as part of a new imprint of books. A new, small imprint that I'm very excited to be heading up and one that I have some great books scheduled for.
So the first one is out on Monday and I'll tell you more about it then!

A Note on Owls

The beady-eyed amongst you will have noticed that The Self-Publishing Advice Service site has had a bit of a revamp. Inspired by the beautiful illustration on the Brighton Book Festival site I asked the illustrator, Sian Beeton, if she could do something for me.

I love the images she has created and I wanted to share them here and recommend her to you. She is a final year student, so keen to add to her portfolio and very helpful. To see more of her work and get her contact details go here.

 And why an Owl? Wise Old Bird of course...