PYA's Book Fair, May 2022, Harrogate - Looking Back
We held our first Promoting Yorkshire Authors’ Book Fair in the Victoria Shopping Centre in Harrogate on 14th May 2022 – it took a lot of organising so it’s time to ask the important questions: Was it worth it? Could we do it better?
The answer to both is – of course – a resounding YES. Gross of card charges nearly £700 worth of books and craft items were sold and it was a great learning ground in a safe format – supported by the shopping centre and a place with good footfall. All of the technology for payment worked (whew) and eighty percent of the payments were made using cards – so having payment processing was essential.
We decided to hold a Children’s and Young Adult Book Fair as a test ground for our larger and All-Genre Book Fair of October – especially as we were limited to six tables – and the format worked well – publicity did its job, tables, balloons, flyers and banners all gave us a professional ‘PYA’ look and everyone helped each other during the day – all emphasising the spirit of PYA – we’re stronger together – not in competition.
Though we had a rota for the day we had to be flexible as the day presented its challenges – our story time had to be abandoned as staff changes within our sponsor made it difficult to hold and taking payments took more effort than anticipated. The process of paying needs a little streamlining – something for next time.
We’ll pick up some of these lessons for our October Book Fair, which should be easier as we’re more in charge of the venue which we’ve hired for our exclusive use. We’ll organise the tables by genre and we’ll ask for volunteers to help on the day but – most of all – this is a PYA event for the benefit of Promoting Yorkshire Authors and our members. If you’re interested in attending as a book seller or a helper – please remember that.
And one last thing… our experience from this event was that those participants with more titles to sell… well they sell more books! It isn’t rocket science but it’s borne out by our web site too – those members with a larger number of titles have a higher ranking on the site.
