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YALC Day One and Bookish Brits Vlog 18

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It’s the 22nd August, over a month after the event, and I think I am finally recovering from the whirlwind of bookish wonder that was the first Young Adult Literature Convention! Yes, it’s taken that long. It was just so inspiring and interesting and exhausting…but wait – I’ll start at the beginning.

I packed up my bag on the Friday night with our pretty new Bookish Brits business cards:

And I went to bed at what I thought would be an early enough time, setting my alarm for what I thought would be an early enough time. In the morning I put on my hipster dress and a blue hair thing. I took photos on the train so people from Twitter would recognise me.

Also on the train I read a lot of tweets about the length of the queue. I had a copy of Red Glove by Holly Black with me, so I wasn’t too concerned about it. But I was not prepared for this (video by Tim Wood):

It felt like I had to walk forever just to find the end of the queue. I thought I’d reached it several times before I finally got to the end. At one point one of the LFCC staff asked me and two girls nearby if it was the queue for Early Bird ticketholders. “I hope so!” was my incredulous response. On the plus side, I managed to read quite a lot of Red Glove as I walked. I also got to see some amazing cosplay that I might not have been able to get such a good view of while inside the convention, as it was so busy.

Finally I got inside and headed for the Book Zone as quickly as I could. But I was stuck in a massive crowd for a few minutes. It was somewhere between moshpit and the Crystal Palace Fireworks for crowdedness. Not great. Eventually I managed to push my way through and marched through stalls and autograph areas until I could get to a) the loos and b) the Book Zone!

The Book Zone was a much calmer, more relaxed area. People were hanging around picking up flyers and posters and badges, chatting, and admiring the fabulous book wall.

I queued up with the simple dream of collecting a ticket for every panel discussion. I LOVE panel discussions. I may be the number one fan of the concept of panel discussions. Unfortunately I had arrived too late (it was now about quarter to eleven, I arrived at Earl’s Court at about 9:30) to get a ticket for the first panel, It’s the end of the world as we know it: the ongoing appeal of dystopia (with Malorie Blackman, Sarah Crossan, Patrick Ness and James Smythe), but all the others were up for grabs. On the plus side, if you didn’t have a ticket, you were still allowed to stand at the back and watch, which is what I did. The microphones were a bit dodgy during the first panel, so I didn’t hear everything. I did hear most of what Malorie Blackman said, though, and I loved that she had come in costume!

The second panel was Going graphic: from novels to graphic novels with Ian Edginton, Marcus Sedgwick and Emma Vieceli, and chaired by Sarah McIntyre. I sat quite near the front for this one. It was really interesting, all about the process of adapting novels to graphic novels, and how it is different from creating a new story from scratch. I’m currently deciding whether I should write up my notes from the panels and make a post about each one. Let me know if this is something you would be interested in reading.

Superfans unite! was the third panel and one of the most popular panels of the whole weekend, thanks to the presence of the one and only Rainbow Rowell. I actually didn’t take any notes during this panel because it was more of a fun, celebratory Q&A-based event. The audience asked loads of funny, thoughtful questions. The other panelists were Tim O’Rourke and Lucy Saxon, and it was chaired by Andy Robb. Lucy Saxon was dressed as Captain America and she looked AMAZING.

After that panel finished most people went off to queue to get Rainbow Rowell to sign their books but I’d borrowed Fangirl from the library so instead I went to join a very different kind of queue, the almost-as-long queue for the loos. At this point I was also really thirsty and had drunk most of my water, but the queue for the only food and drink outlet was even longer. This was a real problem. I think it was very irresponsible of the LFCC to have only one place where attendees could get water, especially on such a hot day. The queue was still terrible when I left the toilets so I decided to ration out the rest of the water I’d brought with me, and went to sit back down in the panel area.

Thanks to the loo queue I missed at least half of the fourth panel, Regenerating the Doctor: reimagining famous characters, so when I sat down it took me a while to catch on to what the speakers were discussing. What I did manage to hear was really interesting so it was a shame I couldn’t get to listen to the whole thing. It was great that the YALC organisers managed to squeeze so many wonderful panels into two days, but after going to Nine Worlds recently, where there was a half hour gap inbetween panels, rather than the 15 minutes allowed by YALC, I have started to think that maybe it would be better to have maybe one less panel and longer breaks, for the comfort of the people attending.

The last panel I went to was Bring me my dragons: writing fantasy today with Frances Hardinge, Amy McCulloch, Jonathan Stroud and Ruth Warburton, chaired by Marc Aplin. I was sitting next to Imogen Russell Williams during this panel (as I was during most of the panels, because I have great taste when it comes to choosing who to sit next to) and she was telling me before it started how amazing Frances Hardinge’s books are, and I have to say that thanks to that and Frances’ own description of her books I am convinced that I must read them all now! I was too awestruck to even attempt to write down how Frances Hardinge described her work. It was that good a description. She was also really interesting and amusing during the panel. To the library!

I ended YALC day one by going to the Getting started with graphic novels workshop with Emma Vieceli. I wasn’t expecting to learn very much in 45 minutes but it was fabulous and it made me want to draw. The only problem was not with the workshop content but with the fact that the workshops took place in a area off to one side in the Book Zone. It was very difficult to hear the workshop leaders talk because they didn’t have microphones and we were surrounded by all the general convention noise. If there had even been some of those temporary walls around it that might have helped shield it a little. Alternatively they could give the workshop leaders microphones and then people who weren’t taking part could listen in too, which I know a lot of people wanted to do.

After the workshop I joined some other bloggers who were waiting for the last panel to end and for the signings to be over so that we could head for the YALC Fringe event in a nearby pub! I was so excited to drink this.

That’s just cranberry juice but I drank it with such delight that it could have been the best prosecco in all the land. I also had several pints of water and a much-appreciated burger. I talked to both bloggers and authors, though not nearly enough of them. I was having a really good time and there were more people I wanted to say hello to but I was suddenly so incredibly tired.

And I knew that the next day, I was going to have to get up earlier and try to get there a lot earlier so that I could be sure of getting a ticket for every panel this time. There was no way I was going to miss out on tickets for the I’m too sexy for this book! panel, or the Sisters doing it for themselves panel, or for Holly Black & Sally Gardner in conversation…

I decided to say goodbye to as many people as I could and sneak out before I could fall asleep at a table and drool on somebody’s raffle prize (books, natch). I went home, set my alarm for quarter to six (!!!), and went to bed.

I’ll leave you for today with my eighteenth Bookish Brits video. It’s a bit long, but it summarises (errr..sort of) everything I could possibly have to say about YALC! Good, bad, and hopeful 🙂

London Book Fair 2014 – A Guide for People Who Are Not Publishing Professionals

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The view from upstairs of some of the stands at the London Book Fair. Look! The Hachette stand has a flipping second level!

This week I went to my first ever London Book Fair, and I had a great time. I’m planning on writing more about my experience soon, but first I thought I’d give you some tips to help you decide if going to the London Book Fair is something that could benefit you.

Fact is, if you go to the London Book Fair, and you’re someone who doesn’t work in the publishing industry, all you can really do is go to seminars, or go to stands run by self-publishing companies and let them try to sell you stuff.

That said, the seminar selection was great. There are 250+ seminars and all of them are free to attend once you’ve registered. The majority of them are about very specific publishing issues, or are run by companies who want to sell publishers their product, but this year there was a whole track for authors, as well as education and children’s publishing tracks.

I found enough seminars that matched my interests to more than justify the registration fee – it was £30 in advance or £45 on the day, which is an absolute bargain for the number of interesting seminars that I was able to attend. And I only went on two days!

But I am a blogger who is interested in YA and children’s literature, and wants to be a author. I am open to the idea of self-publishing, and I also love learning about marketing. There was a lot that appealed to me.

I think the London Book Fair is most useful for a non-professional if you have more than one area of interest within publishing.

If you want to work in publishing but don’t yet – go to the annual seminar about how to get into publishing, which is run by the Society of Young Publishers (who run lots of other events in London and Oxford, I’ve been to a few) and then as many others as you can. Knowledge is power and it makes sense to learn as much about the industry and the issues it faces as you can, if you want to be a part of it.

If you’re an author who doesn’t want to self-publish, and doesn’t want to do much of their own marketing and publicity, I, and this is my own personal opinion, would say skip it, unless the programme is drastically different next year or whenever in the future you would like to attend. This year there were a couple of basic intros to the publishing industry aimed at authors, and two events for authors to speed-pitch agents, and that was pretty much it. Unless you have another interest or you’re a fan of the Authors of the Day and really want to attend their talks, it’s probably not going to be the best use of your time. Stay home and write and look at the workshops offered by Spread the Word and other organisations instead!

If you’re an author who wants to self-publish, go, but unless you have another interest, you might not want to spend the whole three days there. There were several seminars about self-publishing and some of them were brilliant, others repetitive and samey. Also, please, before you go, read a book about self-publishing or do some online research so you don’t become That Person who asks a really basic question during the Q&A time. There is a limited amount of time for questions and it’s rare that everyone who wants to ask a question will get to do so. With a little advance preparation you can help everyone get more out of the seminar by asking more specific, advanced questions.

If you’re an author who wants to be traditionally published but wants to get involved in marketing and publicity, go and attend a) all the self-publishing seminars you can and b) as many seminars that relate to the kind of books you write as possible. I don’t think you’ll get as much out of it as self-publishing authors will but at the very least you’ll become more aware of current trends.

If you’re a teacher, I’m not really sure how much would appeal to you. There are some seminars about inspiring kids to read and such. There are other events that are more tailored to your needs, but this one only costs £30/£45, so if you think there are enough seminars that interest you to justify the expense, go for it.

If you’re a blogger, just a blogger, skip it. You might find a couple of seminars that interest you but most of them are likely to go straight over your head. Honestly, that happened to me a couple of times and I have all the interests I mentioned above! If you’re a blogger who wants to work in publishing, consider it. Ditto if you’re a blogger who is also a teacher or who wants to self-publish, et cetera.

As always, your mileage may vary, so think about the expense, look at the entire list of seminars, and decide whether you think it is worth it. For me, the expense was minimal. I live in London, so I didn’t need a hotel room, and in my current job, which I’m about to leave, I don’t have to work Tuesday to Thursday, so it didn’t cost me any holiday time. Next year, I will have to book time off if I want to attend, so I’ll have to think more carefully about it.

Have you been to London Book Fair? What did you think? What advice would you give? Do you think you’ll go again?