Two weekends ago, I went down to Edinburgh to attend the Scottish Poetry Library‘s annual small press fair, By Leaves We Live.
For years I went to this event as an observer, looking around at the tables of poetry chapbooks, small press publications, and one-of-a-kind hand-crafted books, and I’d think, “I should be in this!”
Of course, as with so many things, it’s not that I wasn’t welcome, it’s that I wasn’t invited — a subtle and important distinction. The organisers simply didn’t know about me. So in advance of last year’s event I let them know, and was welcomed to participate.
I had a blast, and I gave a talk about DIY publishing to an overflowing roomful of people who seemed to get something out of it.
When an invitation for the event came around this year, I made sure I would be part of it. I bound all sorts of new books — better than last year’s, because I’d had another year of learning, experimentation, and refinement under my belt. And I decided to make my talk much more focused: rather than try again to cover everything to do with indie publishing, I chose one aspect: “How to Make a Paperback Book”.
The challenge this year was that I’ve moved so far from Edinburgh. So I packed my books into an old suitcase and I took the train south.
Happily, despite the weight of my case, the journey was straightforward and easy. Unlike airports, the train station didn’t require me to take off clothes, empty my pockets, or wait in long queues; I just sat in my seat on one train then the other, read, worked, and enjoyed the scenery. So civilised! And it proved that getting back Edinburgh is not a big deal.
The book fair was a thrill. The staff at the Poetry Library are a passionate, committed, helpful, and fun group of people, and I was in heaven getting to talk to so many people who understood and were excited about what I’m doing, many of whom wanted to do something like it themselves. (More on this in a moment.)
I also sold nearly three times what I did last year, so I figured I should consider what might have contributed to this result.
Vivisecting my shop.
Here’s what the whole table looked like (click to see a larger version).
It starts with a wooden display — a friend’s unwanted Ikea dresser drawer insert — and spreads out from there.
- Little books. I made one of these last year and people went mad for it, so this year I made a handful. Unfortunately, someone early in the day wanted to buy them all! I asked to keep one to show.
- Novels to flip through. I figured that if one copy of each novel was loose on the table, people would be more inclined to pick them up and browse through them. I was right.
- Impulse items. I had lots of neat, little, inexpensive things on the table that people could buy without a second thought — like magnetic bookmarks and wallets made from a single sheet of waterproof paper printed with a map. Those little sales add up over the span of a day, and are a great way to engage with lots of people and leave them with a little morsel of what you do.
- Business cards. Sometimes people liked the idea of what I was doing but were non-committal about buying anything. Nae bother: they could take a business card. Who knows?
- Changeable price-tags. I made tiny clothes-peg-and-chalkboard price tags to clip to the different sections of my display. I’d read that it’s better to let people see the price clearly rather than making them ask, and this did seem to work well. Plus I could change them throughout the day as I felt out what the crowd was willing to pay.
- Blank books. I love making these, and figure they’re less subjective than deciding to buy a novel or not. “Fill this with you” is sometimes easier to take than “This is full of me“. The little books sold well, as did some fun softcover notebooks made with cardboard packaging covers, which were a last-minute addition and very easy to make. The larger books, however, didn’t sell. (More on that below.)
- DIY Book Press: My talk was about making a paperback book, and — whaddya know? — I happened to be selling perfect-binding presses. I’d also provided instructions, which I think helped make people feel like they stood a better chance of using it successfully when they got home. Talking about the projects people wanted to finish with these led to some of my most exciting conversations of the day.
- DIY guides. Some time ago, I’d made a Quick-n-Dirty Bookbinding Guide (downloadable from my Links page). I’d printed a number of them for a course I didn’t end up teaching, so it occurred to me to sell them here. I displayed them with a little hardcover book — exactly the sort of thing one could make using this guide — and they sold out.
- Float & receipts. For weeks, I saved all my coins and £5 notes, so come the day I was ready to make change. Good thing, too, because everyone came armed with £20 bills! I also had a book of home-made receipts, which let me keep track of what I sold, and in one case allowed me to sell an order for a book rather than my last copy. Now I just have to add all these to my tax database! “But couldn’t you just take the money without claiming it?” Yeah, I could, but this justifies the endless amount of paper and bookbinding tools I claim! (Oh yeah, and I had a coffee to kick-start my day, but, of course, travel-coffee always ends up being more of a mess than it’s worth.)
- Price/description cards. In addition to giving people examples of things to play with, I also printed up little display cards with a description and price on them. That helped when I was already engaged in a conversation with someone else, and again lowered the “approach pressure” of the display. (There’s a forcefield bubble of social pressure around a table manned by the person who created the stuff, isn’t there?)
- Free podcast information. The DIY Book podcast is the best resource I have on offer for people who want to learn how to do what I’m doing. I was going to make up little cards with the podcast’s information, but then it occurred to me that, no, I should give out my business card, since the original point of the thing was to raise my public profile and sell more books by being helpful.
What worked:
- Standing up. People wanted to talk about the things on my table, and when I stood it became a conversation rather than a transaction. I could explain how things worked or what a book was about, and that seem to make people feel more engaged with what I was offering, and inclined to buy it.
- Doing a tie-in. My talk was about making a paperback book, and I happened to be selling perfect-binding presses. But I also had instructions for making them and talked about other ways to do the same thing, so I felt like it was genuine information, not just a sales pitch.
- Conversations. I had lots of great chats throughout the day with browsers and with the other vendors, too. It’s pretty neat to hear yourself described as “The MacGyver of book publishing” or your process as “the future of publishing”.
- Leave-behinds. At my talk, I gave handouts that listed the free and commercial imposition software that’s available, since this is a vital part of being able to make a paperback book. So rather than making the attendees take notes, I gave them the name, price, and URL for these products… on a little slip of paper with my logo and URL on them, of course, so people could ask questions or look into my work after the talk.
What didn’t work (or was difficult):
- Running out. Oops! I didn’t have many copies of my second and third novels, which sold more copies than last year. I also ran out of the guidebooks, which were new, so I didn’t know how many to have. “More”, apparently.
- Pricing one-off items. I didn’t have prices for everything on the table. Some of the things were just experiments, or I really didn’t know what to charge. But I should have done that work if I was going to show them.
- Pricing handmade goods like commodities. I also didn’t know what to charge for my blank hardcover journals. Each of them involves more work than I could justify charging for, and there are equivalent things widely available for a low price. Of course, those aren’t hand-made, and several people told me I should charge a lot more, since they’re unique “artist’s books” rather than just store-bought notebooks. The thing is, even at the lower price they didn’t sell. I don’t understand why, because they’re what I sold the most of last year, and this year’s books are tidier and of better quality. People oohed and ahhed, and the little journals sold, but not the full-size ones, and I erred on the side of pricing them cheap, which wasn’t really fair to me, but my decision on the day was to try to sell everything so I could make more! Perhaps it’s because they were in the middle of the box and harder to get to. I know I’m disinclined to riffle through people’s displays. Also, for much of the day the expensive ones were at the front; I switched that around, though the more expensive ones are more of a draw because they’re nicer to look at. I’m not sure about how this should be done better.
The upshot?
I declare that the day was a success — not because of the money, but because I had a chance to connect with my ‘tribe’, people who are into this thing I’m passionate about.
I loved having specific conversations about the books they could make or the groups they could do this with — like the education officer who works with teachers who lead poetry classes for children. She was all lit up about the possibility of the kids finishing their poetry class with a bound book of their work, which would be too prohibitively expensive to produce commercially, but would be easy to put out in a DIY Book form. And this would add another dimension to what they’ve learned, letting them know they can not only write poetry, they can publish it, too.
If there was a single thing that distinguished my display from the other tables — if I’m allowed to say this — it would be that they were selling a finished product, but I was selling a possibility (“You can make books”), along with products that are an expression of that possibility. It’s much more open-ended, less of an ask than an offering.
Of course, not everyone will be interested in doing that, which is fine. But it worked for me, and I like being the guy who says, “You can do it. Nothing is stopping you.”
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