The Upward Path

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London Book Fair 2013

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Show floor at London Book FairOn Monday and Tuesday I was at this show at Earl’s Court, London. It’s a great big event where the publishing industry converges to show off titles, make deals and discuss the future. I went last year for the first time and enjoyed it, so I was back again, though not for the whole three days. Here’s what I thought of the stands and the seminars I went to.

Stands

Last time I walked every aisle to soak it up, but this year I didn’t need to see all the stands by remaindered book sellers and big publishing companies. The bit of most interest to me was the digital publishing zone. It seemed smaller this time, with less stuff of interest to a smaller operator. I wonder whether that illustrates a cycle. In 2011, I gathered, the traditional publishing industry was freaking out about ebooks; in 2012 there was much talk of integrating them into their operations. Maybe now it’s just seen as part of business as usual?

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The Self-Publishing Conference 2013

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Yesterday I was at this event down the road in Leicester. I confess, I wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about an early start on a Sunday in the snow! I’m glad I went though. There was a good atmosphere and I would happily have chatted to people further – a good indicator for an event, and especially one running for the first time.

The conference was put together by the folks at Matador, one of the leading self-publishing service providers. (By which I mean: you take your manuscript and pay for your choice of services to turn it into a book people can buy.) They’d brought in a range of speakers on topics including choosing a self-publishing service provider, printing, marketing, design and ebooks. The programme was all about those sessions: four slots with your choice of three topics, with a panel at the end. Oh, and a rather excellent lunch!

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“Attendee”? I’m afraid not.

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Have you noticed that it’s common for people talking about events to refer to those who come along as attendees?

The “-ee” suffix means something happens to you. For example, an employee is someone who is employed by another person or organisation. Attendee actually means someone who is attended – perhaps they have servants!

To talk about someone who does the thing, you need “-er” – so employer or attender.

Slight snag: attender sounds awkward and impersonal when you use it. “The conference had two hundred attenders.”

Maybe we’d do better with a different word entirely. You could try delegate, especially if you want to sound a bit posh and official, though it really means someone appointed to represent another person or body, not just someone who turns up.

You know what you could call people who visit your event? Visitors.

Your clear seminar presentation

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Storytelling graphicThis is a bit off my usual track of written material, but it’s still info presentation, and I’ve been at an exhibition event recently so it’s something I’ve been mulling over.

Some presentations – seminars at events, evening talks, etc – leave you feeling satisfied and that the time is well spent, but I’ve been to many in the last few months that didn’t leave me feeling like that at all. So here’s what I think: perhaps you’ll find it helpful.

There are two types of talk. Entertaining ones are particularly suited to celebrities and well-known yarn-spinners, who can attract an audience just to hear them talk about their life and experiences in their special style. Most talks, however, aim at being useful: giving the audience new facts, insights and skills that they can add to their pool to solve problems and make progress in some aspect of their life.

Here comes the completely made up science part

You can think of your interaction with your seminar audience as a push and pull between two factors: satisfaction and annoyance.

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Exhibitions: publishing, media, marketing

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Belated report! On Tuesday and Wednesday last week I was down in London at two exhibitions – or possibly four, or one… as they were in the same hall at Earl’s Court.

  • P&ME – Publishing & Media Expo – “The UK’s only multi-platform publishing event covering digital, print and mobile”.
  • TFM&A – Technology for Marketing & Advertising (actually joint with two other acronyms, but that doesn’t matter to anyone except the organisers.

photo (4)There were loads of stands by organisations looking to sell services, and a packed programme of seminars across (counts) actually 15 different “theatres”. It wasn’t a massive show – maybe using a third the space of London Book Fair – but there was plenty on. I’d been told about it a week before, and thought the content looked good enough for a trip. I was there for Tuesday afternoon and all of Wednesday.

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