Make Book Fairs More Interesting!

"We book fair organisers need to appeal to a much wider audience and help to stimulate interest in reading and collecting books." Readers comments  Mark's update

I own MR. Books Bookshop in Tonbridge, Kent and also organise the Tonbridge Book Fair. At the next fair, on Sunday October 29th at Tonbridge School, in the heart of the town, it will change its name to the West Kent Book Fair and Literary Festival.

The need for the literary festival flavour to the event sums up my feelings about fairs. Other than for the really serious book collector, generally they are rather dull.

I have organised the fair in Tonbridge now for the last year and a half. I have reduced the number of fairs from six a year down to two, in order to raise interest levels and avoid clashes with other fairs in the South East.

Right from the start I have tried to make them more interesting with poetry readings, literary quizes for children, book binding demos, story telling, creative writing advice, poetry competitions (resulting in a published anthology). Now I intend to expand this into a weekend of literary events at nearby pubs and clubs, in the street and at the fair.

For me, it's the only way forward to increase audience attendance, which surely is what it's all about. Its no good just appealing to the serious collector; they would come if the fair was held in the middle of a field on a January morning at 5am.

We book fair organisers need to appeal to a much wider audience and help to stimulate interest in reading and collecting books. It has to be a bit of a mission for everyone involved in the book trade.   Add a comment

Mark Richardson
MR. Books Bookshop
2 Bank Street
Tonbridge
Kent TN9 1BL
01732 363000
04.05.06

Mark provided the following update on 16.11.06.

Keith Thompson responds:

Mark Richardson's comments seem to miss the point. Presumably the object of a bookfair is to sell books and whether or not it is "dull" misses the point. I for one go to buy books and probably would not attend if it was in the middle of a festival. And I suspect that the wider audience would be less interested in buying books than attending the other events. In terms of selling more books the proposal seems to be self defeating.

What might be more useful would be to have a computer at each fair and teach the public about on line book searching and each stall to have its own full inventory on display. Many times I have been at fairs where sellers cannot service a query from less experienced would be book buyers and people go away disappointed. Usually the query could be readily serviced on the spot by use of the internet. It is this sort capability that sellers could pick up on. Perhaps each fair should have its resident help desk or something.

It would be also useful to know which sellers sell what on a board at the door.   Add a comment

Keith Thompson
15.05.06

Gordon Hill comments:

Having read these comments, I agree with Keith Thompson. Having exhibited at book fairs from 1986 until 2004, I feel qualified to make a comment.

I have experienced and heard about book fairs combined with literary festivals and the like, and along with others - exhibitors and organisers alike, found that in respect of literary festivals in particular, the people attending love the content of books and love reading, but many of them are not interested in owning them as things - they go to the library, or if they do buy a book, it is not a collector's copy, or even a hardback - the cheapest paperback copy will do. In my experience of observing these people, the fact that it is a book is secondary to what is in it.

Hardly ever have I experienced increased sales by exhibiting at such events, some of which no longer run, because the booksellers didn't book them again, so the organisers no longer booked the venues. I hasten to add that this is not the same as book fairs run to coincide with events to do with specific events in the fields of, for example, military history, natural history, literary societies etc. All collectors read to some extent, but by no means all readers collect!!

As has already been said elsewhere, the status of the book as a source of information etc., is under constant threat, and book buying and collecting is going on in ways other than shops and fairs, and there is plenty of evidence to show that these are reducing in number as these other changes take effect. I believe that continuing to promote book fairs in such a climate is simply flogging a dead horse. We need something different, not more of the same. As a colleague said to me recently "These days it's a case of change or get out." I agree, and that is why we have given up book fairs.  Add a comment

Gordon Hill
Bowdon Books
20.05.06

Clive Keeble's prescription:

If Bookfairs are going to survive then they must offer "commercial" titles at realistic prices - none of this, "it is in the median of abe listings": pet hate about bookfairs, un-manned stall, stallholders still setting up at 10.30am and those that hide better books under the table until they have had the view of many other 'exhibitors'. "Oh no Rodney, that book is worth far more than that (but no offer is made by Charles) : quick rub of the duster, and it gets shown to another "poser" but never sold :^)  Add a comment

Clive Keeble
Keeble Antiques
25.05.06

Robert Brown observes:

Keith Thompson suggests computers at Book Fairs! What next? Why bother with having any books there at all?

But seriously, in my opinion, the book trade has got to re-learn the lesson that retail is retail, and that bookselling is not a profession which enjoys some special right to exist. Clive Keeble is right: most books are priced according to some obscure belief that there is a "right" price, usually taken from the net. For years the book fair trade has constipated itself by offering the same books at high prices with every book-fairy seeming to want to squeeze top dollar from their stock. I've often wandered around book fairs open mouthed at the sort of prices being asked for books which I have in the shop at a fraction of the price. And shop overheads roll in 24/7, not just one day a month.

The reduction in fairs and shops has been inevitable with the growth of the net: you can't beat it for ease of access to most titles that one just wants to read or needs for study etc. Life has moved on, and it is no good thinking it will suddenly change back to what it was.

Retail (including fairs) has to concentrate on its strengths: making the customer buy something that they didn't know they wanted when they walked in the door. Making stock varied and attractive; offering advice; pricing according to punter perception not some idealistic value (this can be higher that the net in many cases for attractively bound books); offering something they haven't seen before (I buy a lot of stock in the USA which is fresh to UK eyes); talking to customers; keeping up with fashion; even not recommending the stock.

Too many "booksellers", not enough retailers! Think of yourself as a gents outfitter or a greengrocer, what have you got, or can you develop, that will make people decide that it's worth coming to see you as well as going to Marks or Tesco. Otherwise they will walk past you on their way to the supermarket.  Add a comment

Robert Brown
The Winchester Bookshop
30.05.06

Gordon Hill replies:

I agree with much of what Robert Brown wrote, but would say that pricing according to 'punter perception' is easier said than done, as any bookseller's selling price is determined by his/her buying price, and increasingly we find that 'punters' are expecting champagne books at lemonade prices, but expect champagne prices when offering books for sale. No can do.   Add a comment

Gordon Hill
Bowdon Books.
10.06.06

Mark Richardson's update
The fair will continue with its theme of providing a slightly more interesting atmosphere with a literary festival flavour. This has worked very successfully at the last fair in October where there was a combination of 25 booksellers, three local authors doing book signings, poetry readings, children's story time, literary quizzes for different age groups, hand writing and doodling analysis, book readings out loud, traditional story telling, book binding demonstrations throughout the day, publishing advice, announcements of the results of our annual poetry competition and more.
     As I have previously suggested, in my view, the book collectors will come pretty much whatever you lay on, the challenge is to increase the interest from people on the fringes, who need a bit of persausion to move away from their TV screens and computers.
    It no easy task but I can tell you that, in my case at least, it is starting to pay dividends. The numbers attending the West Kent Book Fair were dramatically up, with well over 500 visitors at the last fair, I'd like to see over a thousand at the next....   Add a comment

Mark Richardson
MR. Books Bookshop
16.11.06

Pierce Roche observes:

The PBFA started off over thirty years ago as a way of providing a market place for dealers outside of London (that's where the word 'Provincial' came in) so that their wares could be seen by the London trade and regular book afficianados.

The original idea was never to form an organisation for wannabe dealers to cream off the best books and have somebody else organise a way of making a living for them, while avoiding the considerable outgoings and overheads of running a proper business as part of a trade of people making their full time income from books.

Bookfairs work best as trade fairs. Dealers have to buy books from each other and then take them away to their own private customers. Sales on the day to the public are a bonus. The people who whinge on endlessly about the decline of book fairs are often the same people who lay out little money at fairs.

When I read that a book fair with sixteen dealers exhibiting had an average take of £165.00 then that means that the total spent by all dealers and customers at that event was not much over two and a half thousand pounds. Speaking as someone who has often spent more than that amount myself at fairs I can only say 'Grow up boys and girls' and learn that this is a trade where money has to go round and where we all help each other. Nominating oneself as a bookdealer is not a passport to profit underwritten by the gods.

As the motto of my home town of Huddersfield says: 'Juvat impigros Deus'.

Pierce Roche
05.12.06.