Whew! The Akron book fair is over and life is slowly
returning to normal. I have lots of things to talk about today, but I think considering
all the build-up, I will focus on the fair and leave the rest for another day.
It was a little iffy as to whether or not Eric would be manning the booth by himself,
but I rallied on Tuesday and worked like a maniac playing catch-up. We showed
up on Friday, the first day, traveling a little light. But in the end maybe less was more, as we wound up having (by
a considerable margin) the best of the
three fairs we’ve done. While I was thrilled – and truly still am – our own situation
temporarily skewed my vision of the fair in the
broader context. It’s only today that I am able to take off the rose colored
glasses and have a hard look at both the good and the bad.
On the positive side, this year we experienced much less
price resistance and no one – NO ONE – asked us if we would take $20 for a $200
book. We had one scanner in the booth, but he was there last year and just like
then worked assiduously on all of our firearms titles. While I still think it’s
rather crass to scan in a retail sales venue, I didn’t even care this time. In
the overall scheme of things it was the equivalent of a whining gnat – pesky,
but not worth hauling out a can of Raid over. Did he buy anything? Of course he didn’t, but then I already knew he wouldn’t.
The flip side of all this – and yes, there is one – is that the number of young people dropped precipitously this year. Gone were the young architect and his wife, gone the fun guy who bought his artist wife the pin-up girls, gone the young guy who bought Sylvia Beech’s book about her famous Paris bookstore Shakespeare and Co., and gone, too, the cool guy from Cleveland Heights who bought an issue of Don Freeman’s One Man’s Manhattan and with whom I enjoyed a memorable talk. I missed them all – not just for the sales they represented, but for their energy, their humor, and most of all, for the future they represented. In the end everything hinges on that future, you know. EVERYTHING. We dare not for a single second lose sight of that even if we’d been lucky enough to sell every book we’d brought. When you’re in for the long haul, as we are, it’s okay to celebrate the micro, but not at the risk of ignoring the macro.
The flip side of all this – and yes, there is one – is that the number of young people dropped precipitously this year. Gone were the young architect and his wife, gone the fun guy who bought his artist wife the pin-up girls, gone the young guy who bought Sylvia Beech’s book about her famous Paris bookstore Shakespeare and Co., and gone, too, the cool guy from Cleveland Heights who bought an issue of Don Freeman’s One Man’s Manhattan and with whom I enjoyed a memorable talk. I missed them all – not just for the sales they represented, but for their energy, their humor, and most of all, for the future they represented. In the end everything hinges on that future, you know. EVERYTHING. We dare not for a single second lose sight of that even if we’d been lucky enough to sell every book we’d brought. When you’re in for the long haul, as we are, it’s okay to celebrate the micro, but not at the risk of ignoring the macro.
So then, what happened? Why did the under-forty crowd abdicate this time when last year they seemed
to have a blast? I wish I knew, but I am totally and completely baffled. The large
city shows – New York, L.A., San Francisco, Seattle, Austin, Boston seem to be
on the ascent. Yes, we’re hanging on just fine in Akron, and certainly lots of books were sold this past weekend, but we are not consistently drawing the buyers
of the future. Can they be wooed, or are they a technological lost cause? I don’t
know and it’s that ignorance that scares me most.
But I don’t want to end on a sour note because there was much about this show to love. We had great publicity – several newspapers did stories and the Akron Beacon Journal sent a photographer over on Saturday. A picture of a dealer who had a copy of the much storied Gun Wad Bible made it into the print version while five or six other pictures landed online, including one taken in my booth just seconds before I sold a 19th century die-cut of a chldren's book entitled Father Christmas produced by Raphael Tuck, maker of postcards, in England. Here's the link.
We also featured talks for the first time this year during the fair – one on
the worth of old books and one about book collecting, the latter given by three
dealers of varied backgrounds. Both were enormous hits which required extra chairs. In fact, two my of friends
who are readers, but not book collectors, stopped by the fair and heard Jim Best (aka my book
guru) talk about old books. Afterwards they came back to my booth and one of
them held up both thumbs and said, “your book guru ROCKS!”
As you can see, I’ve uploaded a new picture of me taken
this year on my – okay, I’m finally ready to dish -- 61st birthday which coincided with this year's fair. It was at the end of the day, so the hair had gone a little wonky and the eyes a bit black-circled, but please note that the bookseller IS upright which is no small feat, all things considered!
4 comments:
I am so glad you had a good book fair but even more than this, I am glad you are feeling better. Thank you for your posts. Sixty-one: no big deal.
Thanks,Hilda. Yeah, I'm kind of over the 61 thing. I think it somehow happened over the weekend. I just thought everybody probably knows anyway, so why not just call it what it is! I AM lots better, though not quite all there yet. Still tired and a littel congested, but considerign where I WAS I'm a new woman!
You will add that extra 5 lbs back on and get moving again. Wonderful everything sold. I think you may be correct about the youth...under 40! is youth. Oh my. ebooks. But there will always be people, like ourselves who still love books and the older the better. You look great and happy and better than ever, Tess.
Don't laugh, but I actually HAVE the lost 5 lbs back!! Believe me, it wasn't pretty without them. Yes, there are people who still love books, thank heavens. You have to laugh though -- reme,ber back in the 60's when the buzz was "don't trust anyone over 30"?
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