Time marches

Five Leaves two big March projects were the Lowdham Book Festival Winter Weekend and the Leicester States of Independence day. No offence to the rest of March, but I'd like to catch up with my sleep now. Lowdham hasn't had a winter weekend every year, but returned to the idea to fill the gap left by Flicks on the Sticks. After ten years our successful, but loss-making, film weekend, was put to bed - at least for a while. The winter weekend's theme was Local Heroes. It's not on the same scale as the summer festival, but 600 attendances over the weekend was encouraging and, unlike Flicks, we turned a modest profit which will help towards the summer funding. The highlight for me was the evening with the screen writer Billy Ivory (as in Made in Dagenham), who used to empty the bins in Lowdham in an earlier life.
The Five Leaves staff is, however, most in need of a few zzzzs following States of Independence, run jointly with our friends of the Creative Writing Team at De Montfort University. This was not a good year to run it for any of us due to other commitments but we worried about losing momentum, especially within DMU, and decided to run a "full strength" States rather than cut back. We were pushed but we did it. States is a celebration of (small scale) independent publishing - somewhere between a book festival and a convention. And it's free. This year attendance was a bit down, around 420, but people stayed for longer, usually several hours, attending the performances and discussions, buying books or just networking. The initial idea was to focus on the East Midlands with some help from Our Friends in the West (Midlands) but this year there were stalls from CB Editions in London, Shearsman in Bristol and Inpress from Newcastle as well as our home grown publishers. Poetry was well, possibly over, represented in the programme but that also meant excellent sales at some poetry presses (Longbarrow from Sheffield for example) which specialise in crafted publications in unusual formats - the kind of material only seen at such book fairs.
I was stuck on admin/Five Leaves duty all day but I heard very good things especially about the future of the book industry panel (chaired by Pippa Hennessy from Five Leaves on her first outing as a panel chair in any setting) and the discussion about small press comics run by the Leicester enthusiasts from Factor Fiction. The level of co-operation in the day was shown by several poets deciding to run Candlestick's session after the editor had to pull out at the last minute due to illness. None of the readers have been, I think, published by Candlestick and they had little prep time but it was lovely that they ran an emergency reading service rather than just let that session lapse. Another couple of presses ensured that Candlestick's stall was delivered and returned, with DMU students staffing it. I like also that this event is always younger and more multi-cultural than any other literature event I go to.
Events like States involve hard work from a lot of people but they are a way that independent presses can showcase their work and talk to their friends and relations. Friends in Birmingham are discussing how best to move forward with their own States of Independence, while on September 8th CB Editions is organising their second Free Verse, see: http://www.poetrybookfair.com/.
The programme for our States of Independence is still on http://www.statesofindependence.co.uk/.
ps An important part of the day comprises publishing workers buying from other publishers. My purchases were the latest issue of Dream Catcher, to pamphlets from the Nottingham "People's Histreh" group (though as one Nottinghamian said, if they really want to mirror the accent it should be 'istreh), a David Morley poetry collection from Templar that I'd not seen before and Jack Robinson's Days and Nights in W12 meditation (CB Editions). My Five Leaves colleague Pippa bought most of the other books on sale judging by the weight of her rucksack.

States of Independence report

It's always tempting after events to think "we've got away with it again", but on this occasion I do feel that this is the case. States of Independence II (programme still on http://www.statesofindependence.co.uk/) was attended by at least 350 people on Saturday in Leicester. We know this as we gave out day programmes (300 in 2010) which some people shared or managed to avoid so the numbers would perhaps be around 400 attending the 26 events. Why the worry? In 2010 we produced 6,000 printed programmes circulated in advance, but felt that most people attended via facebook, blogs and other electronic means. This year, with less money to play with, we circulated about 2,000 postcards and a handful of posters directing people to the website and concentrated on electronic means only. And the whole event was conceived, programmed and promoted in four weeks. Those of us from the poster and leaflet days get nervous doing without. But it worked. The short notice obviously excluded some people so more notice and perhaps a bit of postering might have brought us to around 500 people, which is as many as this kind of event should have. What is good about States is that the average age of attendees is much lower than the norm at any other literature project we are involved with - and I mean young people not just early-middle aged - and, increasingly, multicultural.
It was not difficult to pull together an interesting programme, nor was it last year, but that might not always be the case with a relatively limited pool of regional speakers. The day - being free to the public - relies on speakers' mutual goodwill (to use the phrase Ni Smith posted on facebook), accepting travel expenses and meal vouchers only, and pitching in to join panels, chair events, and mooching around the stalls like everyone else. There is certainly little barrier between reader and writer, publisher and the published, the well-known and the less well-known on the day. It would be invidious to ship in "national" names who would need paying, while relying on the free labour of local writers and organisers.
We charged stall holders a token fee, a fiver or "an interesting book" more to introduce the idea of charging at a similar event in the future, but though some stalls do well it is hardly a commercial operation, and with so many writers involved sales are spread widely. Nobody makes anything significant, but one of the major features is that much maligned networking. Last year, for example, led to Nine Arches from Birmingham forming partnerships to hold regular "shindigs" in Nottingham and Leicester, while Writing School Leicester formed a publishing partnership with Pewter Rose of Nottingham. This year I signed up a couple of writers I'd not come across before to read at Lowdham Book Festival.
The cost? De Montfort University provides the premises free, but there is a direct cost to them, albeit small, of security on the day. Feeding the speakers cost about £200, travel probably the same (by the time I've tracked down several of the speakers who ran off without their expenses). Say a couple of hundred for publicity. Excluding DMU, £600 all in. Let's say we took £100 in stall hire. £500 then, with no payment for organising time. Five Leaves picked up the bill, and the £1000 it cost last year, the remains of a fund we administered to promote independent presses. This fund is now exhausted so future States projects will need a degree of funding. We are, however, talking with Nine Arches about a similar event in Birmingham.
And on the day? A bit early to say but I know that the sessions on anarchism and on writing speculative fiction were full, that 32 people came to the session on Moomins and philosophy, that Penny Luithlen, the young adult agent who carries some of our writers, was busy throughout the day doing short advice sessions, we sold out of the graphic novel Depresso we were carrying for the day to support one of the speakers and the cafe was rather pleased with its takings. I also know that some friends are ganging up to ensure Five Leaves moves into the eBook era following a session on that subject by Abi Rhodes from Spokesman. Why don't they just leave me alone? I like the twentieth century.

States of Independence II

We are pleased to announce the second States of Independence, to be held in Leicester on March 19. States is a celebration of the work of independent presses and those who write for them. Features this year include sessions on speculative fiction, the Moomins and philosophy, sex and sensibility, as well as an agent surgery and the first public outing of the East Midlands Book Award. Six of the eight shortlisted writers are from indie presses and five will be at States. This year we'll also have some stars from the performance scene, from Word! and Short Fuse.
The whole day is free, and last year was attended by 300-500 people including editors, writers, publishers and the public. Jointly organised by Five Leaves and the Creative Writing Team at De Montfort University. Come for an hour or the whole day. See www.statesofindependence.co.uk

Another one bites the dust

States of Independence in Leicester on Saturday - see blogs passim - was a big success. Thanks to all the stall holders, speakers, table carriers and fellow organisers for making it so, especially the Creative Writing Team at De Montfort University. There have been a number of blog entries about it, but none more likely to give me a big head than the following: http://siobhanlogan.blogspot.com/2010/03/states-of-independence.html. I'm usually a modest bloke with a lot to be modest about but on this rare occasion I'll also immodestly add a photo of me in action. The bloke with his eyes beginning to glaze over is Stephen Hill, a writer from Lowdham.

More seriously, the event was a success, with getting on for 400 attending, many for several hours. Most of the 40 stall holders I have spoken to did well in sales, in contacts, in future arrangements and many of the talks and readings were packed. 70-80% of those attending were probably from Leicestershire, but we do know of people attending from Newham, Manchester, Birmingham all various places in the East Midlands.