Bookcamp!

I am back in Liverpool after a fabulous weekend in London. Before I pass out from exhaustion here’s a quick run down of BookCamp….

I got the train in the previous night, but due to a death on the line (seems to be too frequent an occurrence- same thing delayed me at Christmas) I ended up getting into Euston two hours late, so began socialising two hours late, and ended up attempting to go to sleep at an inadvisable four in the morning. I had to be up at eight to get to BookCamp for half nine, but did not quite manage to get out on time, and arrived after the first session had begun.
Which was my loss, because every session I went to was really productive.
But onto what I did see…
First off was a discussion with Coralie Bickford-Smith and Alan Trotter on design and marketing. It left me with a lot to think about in terms of what I’d do if I decided to self-publish, how I could get my work to stand out, playing with design and thinking outside of traditional formats to present my work as effectively as possible.
Next I listened to James Bridle talk about setting up Bookkake which was really interesting, and really positive. Again, it made me think about things to do with my own work once I am finished, because lets face facts, getting published will be tough. He makes it all sound quite doable. Not easy, but certainly doable.
Then it was time for lunch, and Kevin ( @fuzzycontext) suggested we get a sandwich and eat it at the british library. A friend of mine had said it was close to The Hub, and worth checking out, so I was quite pleased to go along and have a little look.
After lunch I was going to go to a session about book-based social networks, but Kevin had got me interested in what he was doing instead, so I stayed with him to listen in on everyone talking about the possibility of 826 London. Kevins’ enthusiasm for the subject was catching, and everyone that came along seemed interested in setting something up. It sounds like a great project, and I’ll be surprised if they don’t follow through on it. I think setting up store in particular will be challenging, but so rewarding. I’m a little disappointed that, being so far away, there isn’t anything I can put into it myself.
Next I joined Adrian Hon’s session about the decline of reading, and why people don’t read so much anymore. He originally wrote about it on his blog here and it was definitely something that could have had a whole day of discussion and planning.
I have to admit I was a little distracted- the session was right by @amcewen’s bubblino, and I was texting twitter to make him bubble away. Very cool!
After that I went downstairs to join Naomi Alderman’s session Talking To Terrified Writers. Naomi is a fantastic personality, and the session was really interesting. As I told Naomi, I am not terrified yet, more aspiring to be terrified.
Naomi really brought home how hard it is to get paid for writing. I really need to work harder, and get myself noticed.
The Hub itself was a great venue for this kind of thing, the design and architecture seems to encourage creativity and thinking.
Big thanks to Jeremy, Russell and James for arranging all this, and to everyone else for making it such a fantastic day. I wish I could write more on it, but I’m rather tired and bed is calling.

The rest of the weekend was ace too, I’ve spent too much time in Liverpool recently, it was great to get out and spend time around different people in a different place. And it was great seeing everyone- mostly new but one old as well. Unfortunately, there has not been enough time for sleeps recently, and I have so much planned this week- Poetry Cafe in the Bluecoat on Thursday, meeting up with friends almost every other night, so it doesn’t look like sleep is going to find time to work its way into my schedule anytime soon.
I have twice now started a blog post called busy busy January, and not had time to finish it. Oh well, there is no time for a post-Christmas lull in this house, 2009 is all go go go.

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