September 28, 2010

Word on the Street, Toronto

Went to Toronto on Sunday-by train-and spent several hours in Queens Park wandering around the Word on the Street literary festival.
Lots of books on show/sale, with quite a few small publishers and a few of the big boys represented. Tents with panel discussions/talks on things like cooking demos-cookbooks are a perennial best selling genre, -e-publishing/ebooks, various aspects of writing, authors reading their own work & talking about same. There was a big area for childrens books, several religous tents; Islam, Kabbalah, Buddhism, all had outreach efforts.
I met some other writers, one of whom I knew slightly online from the Authonomy website, and found a new small publisher which specialises in novellas. Great, I shall certainly see what I can send them. I find the novella length comfortable, but there seems no market for them except by self-publishing as an ebook. By that I mean few publishers accept submissions at that length, not that readers don't read them.
Quattro Books are Canadian, in a relatively untouched market area. I hope they do well. Certainly the novella length is suited for the ebook market.
Also found contacts with illustrators for a possible graphic novel effort. Recently I contacted another author who has several books on Amazon ideally suited for that genre and suggested he look into that; like me he is a wrinkly oldie with few contacts among the younger arty crowd where underemployed graphic artists are.
So in all definitely worth geting up at 5am to get the train to To. Back next year.