Rain Taxi's Twin Cities Book Festival

On Saturday morning Claire and I found ourselves in St. Paul at the Twin Cities Book Festival. Being the first book festival I've ever attended, I wasn't sure what to expect. Suffice it to say, I was not disappointed.



The Progress building was packed with book lovers
the moment we walked in the door.

From our first step into the packed historic Progress building to our last steps into the rain mid afternoon, we were entertained and informed. The building was full of book lovers of all ages. The amount of people was my first surprise, but it was definitely nice seeing so many book lovers in one place.

After a quick walk through the Exhibit Hall, Claire and I attended the Author Publicity: Basics and Beyond panel moderated by Steph Opitz, Membership Director for the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP) and book reviewer for Marie Claire magazine, featuring author Lorna Landvik, publisher Jerrold R. Jenkins, The Loft Literary Center Executive Director Jocelyn Hale and Minnesota Public Radio's Stephanie Curtis. I wasn't sure how well a toddler would go over in the session, but the acoustics worked in our favor. The large, open building was sectioned off by velvet curtains, but sound from the rest of the building floated in and covered Claire's babbling. We were still able to hear the panelists perfectly, though.

The major discussion point in the panel was building a platform. In the age of social media, having a large following is the way to get a book published. Jenkins pointed out that a writer should build their platform three to four years before publishing a book to have a solid following of between 100 and 150 thousand people.  Agents and publishers have to take a risk on new authors even if their work is good. Having a large online following is appealing to them and mitigates the risk to a degree. This wasn't a new concept to me, but it was a good point to keep in mind.

The panelists did make good suggestions for blogging and writing. Posts and articles that reflect the topic and feel of the novel will break up the self-promotional posts and draw in more followers. The writer should also have some "credits," awards and published short stories and articles to list on queries.

During the Q&A, Jennifer Miller, author of The Year of the Gadfly, asked a good question (and was commended for excellent self promotion for mentioning her book, which I later bought) about whether an author with a big publishing house should handle pitches and self-promotion. The answer was that if the publicist or agent has a contact, he or she should pitch the author, but if not, the author should go ahead and do it him or herself. In response to this, Stephanie Curtis did recommend that when pitching a radio or tv program, the author should have a video or sound clip to prove that he or she can speak well. YouTube here I come!

After the session, Claire and I walked around the Exhibit Hall again as we made our way to the Children's Pavilion, where Claire had a good time dancing to the Splatter Sisters, coloring a mask with the Minnetonka Center for the Arts, creating a book with the Minnesota Center for Book Arts and painting her own face with the help of the Minnesota Children's Museum. The volunteers, writers and performers in the Children's Pavilion were excellent, warm and very helpful.

All of my literature waiting to be read.

After all of that fun, we finally had a chance to really take in the Exhibit Hall. It was a great opportunity to learn about the many book organizations in the Twin Cities, publishers and literary magazines. I still have a stack of information to dig through. I hope to be able to participate in some of the groups to meet some more book lovers.

Now, back to Jennifer Miller. After asking a question during the Q&A session, I saw her book at the Magers and Quinn Booksellers table where she was scheduled to do a signing after 4:00, which was too late for me to stay with a toddler. The book looked intriguing and had a beautiful cover, so I bought it and decided to track her down to beg for a signature.

But that proved harder than I thought. Once, as I was chasing Claire passed the Literary Magazine sale table, I glanced up as I ran passed a woman and gave her the 'sorry my child's so wild smile' and she gave me an 'it's OK' smile back or I decided to interpret it that way. After passing her I realized who it was. But Claire was onto the music table, so I let her play with the instruments because she's going to be a musical prodigy and I like to encourage her.

My second attempt came after the Susan Isaacs book reading, but unfortunately Jennifer walked out behind me as I was bent over talking to Claire. Are you seeing a pattern here? Claire foiled my attempts, but I still have what looks to be a great book to read.

We had a great, long day at the Twin Cities Book Festival. I have plans to go next year, possibly sans toddler, to really take in all of the information.