Gardners Trade Show at the Booksellers Annual Conference 2024

On Sunday 22nd September Jonathan White and Raisa Patel spent the day at the Gardners Trade Show where each year Troubador takes a stand to showcase our new titles and have a chance to meet all the booksellers attending the Booksellers Association Conference. Every year the Bookseller’s Association (BA) has a conference where all the independent booksellers can meet and discuss the main issues facing their industry. Gardners host a Trade Show at the event where publishers can talk to the various booksellers and show them examples of the new books are publishing. Troubador always takes a stand there as we believe it is an excellent way to show the bookshops the range and high quality of the books we are currently publishing.

This year it was the biggest trade show yet with 66 publishers attending. Publishers have realised this is an excellent opportunity to show their big Autumn titles. The booksellers therefore have a lot of choices as to which publisher stands they wish to visit. We were delighted with how many of them came to visit our stand and talk to us about both our books and the type of publishing we are involved with. It is an excellent opportunity to show that within the self-publishing side of our business, we are creating books which have a real bookshop appeal.

We got a very positive response to our books with bookshops particularly interested in any books with local interest to where they are based. We were also gratified to hear from them they had been receiving the ‘local author’ Advance Information (AI) sheets we are sending out to them. As mostly we do not get a direct response to these AIs, it is always great to hear that they are looking at the information we send out to them about our new titles. One bookseller had not only read the AI that had been sent to them but as a result, also requested to read an advance copy of the book and made a beeline to our stand to say how much they had enjoyed it. They had promoted the title on their social media which shows just how helpful it can be when a bookseller gets behind a title they have enjoyed and now want to tell their customers about it.

In our conversations, several bookshops did ask us to pass on to our authors that if they wish to talk to them about their book, it is so much better to make an appointment in advance and agree a time, at a quieter time of a day, when they can come in and discuss the book with them. It is one of the things that the Booksellers Association requests in their very helpful guide to authors about dealing with their local bookshops (available on the Booksellers Association website) so the individual bookshops were certainly backing this up in their conversations with us on the day.

Troubador always has an excellent time at this event. It is the day before the BA Conference properly gets going and the booksellers are enjoying a great day, organised by Gardners Wholesalers, when they get to meet several big-name authors (this year it was brilliant crime writer Ian Rankin and the 80’s pop sensation Rick Astley) and then spend several hours talking to publishers. It gives us publishers a chance to speak to a large number of booksellers all in one place, to hear about how their business is going and of course, showcase our new books to them. We always come away from this event having thoroughly enjoyed our conversations with the pretty constant stream of booksellers who visited our stand and were very pleased with their reaction to our books.