Last Saturday I attended my first literature event as a representative of Lange Publisher. I was also there to show and sell my book Pensionat Solvändan. It is nice to come to a place where you are expected and where you have a
given role in the context. With me at our table, I had Magnus Rörström Pellgaard with his new book I Vasatidens skugga – Det nya riket 1504-1520.
I definitely broke a record on the number of boxes of books I brought. All participants were of course dragging
a heavy box of books, but I lifted a total of four, which were filled to the brim with Lange’s various titles. Editor Kvick thundered in and said: More is more! The table was quickly covered with different books and it looked really nice, even though with this, I to some extent destroyed Magnus’s nice book arrangement. I hope that he will forgive me for that! By the way, Magnus also had time to speak on one of the stages and it was really interesting to listen to his presentation of his book about the Vasa period.
I didn’t really know what to expect from the day at Västerås library, but I quickly realized, that these are gatherings not primarily for book sales but for making contacts and for meetings between authors. And of course, you can’t say no to that! It was a really nice day. I met a lot of authors and saw many new book titles, some of which I bought.
There was a diversity of publishing forms in place – small publishers, hybrid publishers, self-publishing and print-on-demand. It’s great to see that today everyone is finding their own ways to publish their books. Personally, I don’t like those who evaluate the form of publishing in nice and ugly. It must be up to each individual and in the end, it is the content of the book that matters.
One topic that naturally came up during the day was the marketing and dissemination of book distribution. How do you do it? It’s an eternal question, and certainly, we all wish that more books were more visible than those we usually see in bookshops and other stores. Even as a reader, I would like to see more unknown titles and authors on the shelves. But how can you do that? I leave that to the marketing department to solve.
Next weekend I’m going to Avesta for a writer’s day at the library. Magnus Rörström Pellgaard Hillevi Söder, PC Nilsson and I will be talking about our books and possibly sell some of them if there is interest. I hope it will be as nice as in Västerås.
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Mattias is an author, editor and illustrator