Category: Industry

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Frankfurter Buchmesse 24

Kasey Rogers and Kim Davis pointing at one of the many bright pink signs at the Frankfurter Buchmesse. This one says "Reading Changes the World"

by Kim Davis

I went to Frankfurter Buchmesse to represent Madville Publishing for the first time this past week. According to Wikipedia, “The Frankfurter Buchmesse is the world’s largest trade fair for books, based on the number of publishing companies represented. It is considered to be the most important book fair in the world for international deals and trading.”

I left the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport on Saturday, October 12 and arrived in Frankfurt on Sunday October 13. It’s a 10-hour flight and you lose seven hours traveling west to east to get there. This is what I wrote that Sunday as I sat for another eight hours waiting for check-in time at the hotel:

“I’m sooooo-o-o tired… I haven’t slept a wink.”—John Lennon

I binged the entire fourth season of True Detective on the plane, the one with Jody Foster and Kali Reis. I knew I should try to sleep, that it would be morning when I arrived in Germany, but I wasn’t tired then. It was afternoon back home. The series was almost as good as the first season with Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson. I was blown away in that storyline by Matthew McConaughey’s performance that spanned 17 years. He displayed an incredible range. This fourth season I just watched with Jody Foster and Kali Reis was good, but I think the strength of this one was the story more than the acting. Don’t get me wrong, the acting was fine, but if the story hadn’t been strong, it wouldn’t have been special.

I spent the entire time puzzling at the piercings in Kali Reis’s cheeks wondering if the two sides connect like a bit with a chain running through her mouth. Of course that sent me on a search for information about Kali Reis. Did you know she was a professional boxer? That would explain why her character gets to beat some men all the way up in the show. It was good to see a bad ass woman taking the fight to the misogynistic bastards. But I liked the resolution. If there hadn’t been a good ending, it would have spoiled the show for me. That’s what happened in the second one. I didn’t see the third. But without a compelling finish, I leave a miniseries feeling disappointed—like I wasted my time.

So, I watched this series while flying over the ocean from Dallas to Frankfurt in preparation for my first trip to the Frankfurt Book Fair—the largest in the world, and the place to be if you want to sell foreign publishing rights. I’m nervous because I don’t know what I’m doing, and I’m sure I’ve already missed a trick or two by not scheduling meetings yet. Still… Steps one and two are completed. I rode the airplane here and found my way to the hotel. Only trouble is that I arrived at the hotel at nine o’clock in the morning and can’t check into my room until four p.m. and I haven’t slept at all. Now I need to try and stay up all day so I can sleep tonight.

The Frankfurter Buchmesse

To say this fair is huge is an understatement. Here are some photos with captions that may give you an idea of what it’s like. We made some great new friends and hopefully some important business connections. As for foreign rights deals? We’ll see. That part of the trip was more of a learning experience!

Looking around the inner courtyard area at the Frankfurter Buchmesse
Looking around the inner courtyard area at the Frankfurter Buchmesse
Looking around the inner courtyard area at the Frankfurter Buchmesse
We walked miles the first day just trying to find our wan in and out and get something to eat.
We were in building number 5 on the first floor (not the ground floor...)
When we arrived the booth had to be assembled.
We were eight women publishers in cooperation. Deborah Franklin, Jade & Wilnona, the "And I thought ladies," Brandy Miller, Kasey Rogers, and Suzanne Mattaboni
Jade
Visitor to the booth named Molly, Brandy Miller, and Kim Davis
Kasey Rogers and Suzanne Mattaboni
Wilnona and author Cat Buchanan, who visited the booth a few times.
Two of the lovely ladies working the Korean language booth.
Suzanne Mattaboni and Kim Davis.
A panel by three french publishers about licencing film rights.
This group was discussing academic publishing in China.
The larger companies had huge stands.
And we learned a lot about presentation, and location at the fair.
We thought this booth was beautiful with a giant red velvet head of Michaelangelo's David.
Here is a beautiful, colorful booth.
Another beautiful colorful booth.
A beautiful booth.
Kim Davis, Dogman, and Deborah Franklin.
We thought this display worked really well.
The Forum building inside the book fair.
Frankfurter Buchmusse from above.
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London Book Fair 2024

t was 1950’s house wife day. At our booth at the London book fair. Thanks to H.A Stories Lucid house press Madville publishing Micheal Nelson Brandy Miller Jennae Elle Beaugard R.L Merril Abeni Celeste And so many other authors

Six Madville Books went to the London Book Fair

Our friends, Jade and Wilnona, the “And I Thought Ladies,” took six or our recent titles to the London Book Fair this year. These are some of the pictures they sent back. We expect a few more, so check back! We wish we could have joined them. It looks like they had a really great time in our tiny 2 meter by 2 meter booth.

Here is an article we just read that does a great job of describing the experience of the London book Fair. That NYT Piece about LBF??

Madville books on display

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AWP24 came early

Madville author, Lee Zacharias poses in front of the AWP24 Conference & Bookfair banner in Kansas City.

We had a smaller showing at this year’s AWP conference. Kim didn’t attend, having begun her college career in Missouri, she could only think of the weather and the unpredictability of flights in early February in Kansas City. But of course, Madville has a number of authors who have no such aversion to the cold or fear of driving on icy roads, and they did attend and represented Madville happily.

Michael Simms, Madville author of Bicycles of the Gods, The Green Mage, and Windkeep, also edits the online journal, Vox Populi, and he invited us to share his table in the book fair. Our authors signed books and greeted potential readers all three of the afternoons at that table. In addition, we have friends at Hoot, who also shared Luanne Smith’s three anthologies (Muddy Backroads, Taboos & Transgressions, and Runaway) and Jodi Angel’s Biggest Little Girl.

Madville author, Lee Zacharias poses in front of the AWP24 Conference & Bookfair banner in Kansas City.
Andy Rooney (The Lesser Madonnas, The Autobiography of Francis N. Stein), Lee Zacharias (What a Wonderful World This Could Be), and Susanne Davis (Gravity Hill)
Michael Gills (Before All Who Have Ever Seen This Disappear), and Linda Ravenswood (a poem is a house)
Emily Chiles and Cherise Pollard
Madville board member, Cherise Pollard and ____.
Author Michael Gills with his poetry books on display.
Biggest Little Girl, Taboos & Transgressions, Muddy Backroads, and Runaway were on display and available to buy at the Hoot table.
Author Michael Gills with author Lee Zacharias.
Richard Bausch with Lee Zacharias.
Michael Simms with...
Madville's table cloth for AWP24. It shows as many of the new book covers as we could fit.

Thanks to Lee Zacharias for sharing her wonderful photos! (Also Michael Simms and Cherise Pollard!)

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Why Do Writers Need Websites?

Old typewriter keyboard with www keys side-by-side

It\’s all about creating a brand

Authors need websites dedicated to their work. This foundational building block of brand creation is essential in today\’s world where if you want your work to find an audience, you have to roll up your sleeves and do the bulk of the publicity yourself. This may seem obvious to self-published authors, but it is also true even if your book is published by a big-five publisher. You may think that if a traditional publisher buys the rights to your work, you\’re home free, but that is not the case. Publishers\’ budgets no longer stretch to a lot of publicity or advertising.

This is true for writers of all sorts. Whether you write fiction, non-fiction, poetry, children’s books, or magazine articles. The Internet is now the first place your audience or prospective publisher will turn when they want to find out about you and your work.

You’ll want to have a website even before you sell your book. It’s ideal to include a link to your website in your signature for query letters to agents and publishers, for example.

Here are the essentials:

Purchase your domain name

(www.yourname.com). It costs about $15/year, and you should do this immediately, even if you are not yet ready to use it. If the name you want is unavailable, come up with an easy to remember variation. If you wait to do this, you may have a hard time securing your desired name, and it may be very expensive.

.com is still the most popular, but people often elect to purchase the .net variation as well so there will be no confusion or lost website visitors. (It is easy to make both domain names resolve to the same website.)

Avoid using dashes or underscores in your domain name. That gets very clumsy when you are giving radio or t.v. interviews.

A Writer’s Website should display the following information:

 

  • Author’s Bio—See Best Practices for Writing Author Bios. Note that for your website, you can list ALL the awards and publications. Just keep a shorter version for publication with books and articles.
  • Clips—If you seek freelance work, you need clips. This term “clips” derives from the practice of collecting newspaper and magazine clippings to demonstrate a writer\’s published work. These clips may be scanned copies of published works, such as copies of pages from anthologies Your clips may also include links to your articles that have been published online.
  • Samples of your writing—use this term if you don’t actually have any published clips. You need to put your best work on display but be aware that first publication rights are gone once it appears on your website, so the sample you use can only be sold as a reprint later.
  • A Blog—excerpt from: Should You Blog? And If So, What Are Best Practices? by Jane Friedman on the Writers Digest website:For fiction writers and poets, a blog should exercise your creative muscles and let you write in an unpressured way. Sometimes it can help you stumble on insights, as well as new friendships. However, for an aspiring writer, you have to be careful it doesn\’t detract or replace the “real” work of writing the book or the manuscript. For nonfiction writers, blogs can be an essential part of your marketing and promotion—the author platform that helps you get published in the first place.

     

  • Sales Pages for your published work. It is not necessary to have an entire online shopping cart. Your publisher or POD vendor will have a page you can link to. You may even be able to earn a few extra pennies from each sale if you sign up for affiliate sales programs. Amazon and B & N have affiliate programs, for example.
  • A calendar to show any upcoming publication dates, book-signings or events you plan to attend.
  • Links to Social Media This is a big subject all its own—just know it should connect to your website.

The least expensive way to get started

I recommend authors with limited resources start by signing up for a free blog like the ones at http://www.wordpress.com. You’ll end up with an address like http://yourname.wordpress.com. You don’t even need a domain name, but if you have one, it’s a simple matter to “forward” your yourname.com domain name to the WordPress address. Your domain registrar will be able to talk you through this.

For just a little bit more

I prefer to purchase domain name registration together with the economy hosting from a well-known registrar www.godaddy.com or bluehost.com. BEWARE, GoDaddy will try to sell you all sorts of things when you check out. When you get started, don’t buy anything but the domain name. You can add those other services as needed, but you’ll be wasting money if you don’t understand what you’re buying.

Kimberly Davis holds an MFA in Creative Writing, Editing, and Publishing from Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas, and a BA from Columbia College-Chicago in Arts and Entertainment Media Management. She is currently the Director at Madville Publishing, where she solicits literary poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. In addition, Kim has been designing websites for 20 years. See her portfolio at Sublime Design Studio.

Contact her at kpdavis@usa.net to speak to your group.