(written March 2023)
I recently organised and attended two book events for our most recent publication, The Fisherman. Each was based in a place that meant something to El – the first in Liverpool where she studies, and the second in Bangor where the event that inspired the poetry took place.
The Liverpool event was run in conjunction with a digital gallery created by Ada Null, a friend of El’s. The gallery uses the original documents written by El and allows the viewer to explore the written content before showing them a glimpse of the actual event; an ocean scene under a night sky, where they meet the books namesake standing by a fire. As I am not familiar with venues around Liverpool, I leaned on El’s and Ada’s knowledge of the area to recommend a suitable place to host the event. Additionally, Ada already had an idea of how she wanted the space to look and feel with her digital gallery, so taking that into consideration was important. Ada suggested a venue she had visited before – she already had contact with the owner and considered the rental price for a day to be reasonable – so I reached out and booked the venue. Save the delivery of the books, I left the rest up to Ada. I didn’t want to get in the way of her setup or take up more time we didn’t have. El and Ada gave me regular updates on their setup before event day – it would not have been the same event without them. I am truly grateful for all the time and effort they put in to make that first event excellent!
The Bangor event was taken care of by the Writers Guild society at Bangor University – El was previously the chair of said society, so took point on talking to the current members and arranging the event. This event was set up more like a traditional book launch event – El and I were at the front ready to answer any questions about the book, and the publishing/writing processes. We also had some copies left over from the first event, so they were sold and signed as you would expect.
I enjoyed attending both events – they were fun and challenging, and the experience I’ve gained from them is invaluable. Not only did I realise areas of focus for future book events, but they also gave me the opportunity to do some networking and introduce myself as a publisher, rather than a student. That was kind of a big step for me, moving from student to professional – impostor syndrome has been hovering around since I started my postgraduate course, and standing beside my author in front of her family and friends both affirmed and reduced it. Something else that helped is the huge influx of interested authors and freelancers that have introduced themselves to me over the past few months. I want to help people in their creative journeys and seeing so many people come forward gets me so excited to work on these projects with them.
Now that the hype around The Fisherman is calming down, I’m looking forward to working with the authors who have reached out to me – let’s make more books!