The London Book Fair : Day 2

Ok, so The Plan is all but out the window this week. I will adhere to it next week for sure. I intend to post up a blog on the events of the London Book Fair while they are fresh in my memory. Things seem to change a lot from day to day, plus we cover quite a bit of material so I will post up a blog for today (content to follow) and one for tomorrow. The character introduction will be moved to Thursday, so you still have time to vote on whom you would like to hear more about.

Today, I am pleased to report was somewhat better than yesterday. The organisation was still terrible, but the content was impressive. The first lecture was all about publishing work through multiple platforms. The lecturer was a chic-lit author.  She first produced a book. She then set up twitter feeds and an email for some of her main characters and started to interact with fans from their points of view. Then came a fake magazine which these characters worked for,  and you can see this all snowballing to create a virtual world in which her characters lived, breathed and interacted with their audience. Obviously, giving my characters an email address would be rather odd (though amusing, LeifErikson@VinlandFirst.com), but she did give me a number of other ideas I intend to make good use of. Prepare for the Vinland series to get a little technocratic!

The second event was a Self-Publishing Masterclass by my friends at Acorn Independent Press. I know they are a new company so had mentally prepared myself for a sales pitch – after all, they are still trying to develop their brand. The reality had me pleasantly surprised; they were the only seminar there which actually talked about the differences between traditional and self-publishing. Considering that I am a complete newcomer to the industry, this was well needed and well received information. It was an excellent introduction to self-publishing, and the complete lack of any traditional publisher interaction with the writers in the schedule has become all the more clear.

The third seminar in which I was interested today was entirely ruined. I am sure it was a brilliant lecture – I wouldn’t know, I, and many others, couldn’t get into the room. The room itself was rammed full; the lobby outside it was rammed full; the entry ways to the lobby were, yes, you guessed it, rammed. The organisers tried to increase the volume of the speakers inside so those outside could hear, but it just did not work.

Finally, the theme of the fair has been Russian Literature, in honour of Yuri Gagarin’s famous mission to space. I listened to several of the authors and their agents talk about their writings. I had joined the session on Historical Fiction, seeing how it is the genre I am currently writing in, but all of them were modern history (Soviet era) rather than medieval. It was quite interesting all the same, and I know we can expect some exciting things to come out of that region now that authors are beginning to find the bravery to write about all they had been through under the old red regime. 

Tomorrow is going to be an interesting day. While working out a schedule of seminars to attend I noticed several of them had speakers from the games industry. Now, many of you will know I really, really like that particular medium, and have the desire to enter that industry in the future so this will be particularly exciting.

Providing, of course, that I can actually get into the room to see it.