My Top 6 Takeaways from London Book Fair 2023
It’s been a busy week! I spent all day Tuesday and Wednesday at the London Book Fair in Kensington Olympia. It was a wonderful opportunity to network with other authors, get some tips, and soak in some inspiration for the next phase of my author business.
I thought it would be useful for other authors to hear what I learned at the event, so here you go. Please share with others if you find it useful.
Top 6 Takeaways
1. London Book Fair is NOT just for agents and publishers. It is DEFINITELY for writers and you should mark out the dates of next year’s fair, March 12-14, in your calendar NOW. The area near the Author HQ was buzzing with writers. There were also stands for companies that offer services to independent authors. During a talk about using KDP for publishing, JD Kirk who is both traditionally and self-published confirmed something I’ve been saying for a while, which is that no matter how your book gets to market, you need to be active in your own marketing. Grow your newsletter lists. Find ways to connect with your readers. Go to events like The London Book Fair!
2. I went to a talk with the Alliance of Independent Authors where they talked about their results from a study they ran recently with 2000 respondents into the actual income of independent authors. The results are quite heartening, as they show that independent author incomes are actually rising and that independents are earning more than reported incomes for traditional authors. I’ll be going into this more in the next season of my podcast Two Lit Chicks when Melissa Addey from the Alliance will be coming on to go into greater depth on the findings of this study.
3. Sell your book in as many places as possible. Look at BookVault, Lulu, Ingram Sparks. Most importantly, sell your book on YOUR OWN WEBSITE. And I’m not saying put a link to Amazon from your website. I’m saying work with a company like BookVault or Lulu that does the printing for you. You take orders on your site via something like Shopify and the order automatically transfers to them for fulfilment. BookVault currently has printing facilities in the UK and USA whereas LULU is global. Alternatively, you can keep stock yourself and fulfil orders personally. Your profit is much higher when you do this.
The other benefit of using Shopify is that you get the data of the person making the purxhase, which can be a good way to grow your newsletter list. Look at integrating BookFunnel with your website for selling Audio and ebooks straight to clients.
4. Let’s talk about AI. Joanna Penn had a lot of great advice when it comes to this and is keen for us to start thinking of ourselves as “AI-assisted Artisan Authors”. I agree that you can use AI to help speed up tasks that can take a lot of time, like writing Facebook ads. My personal thoughts about AI are that it can very handy in giving you the bones of content for ads or a marketing plan, but that it’s then up to you, as the human being, to mould that content into something usable for yourself. I’ve put a whole lot of new AI tools in the notes below.
5. Good news – TikTok is looking to include independent authors in their TikTok store. I want to try it out first before I say any more, but I’ll report back when I have more information and experience.
6. Great marketing advice from LJ Ross, which is “there is no greater marketing tool than simply writing your next book” which is what I should be doing right now.
Further information
Info on Shopify from Joanna Penn: “The Creative Penn The Minimum Viable Store”
More info on selling direct in this book by Morgana Best: Stop Making Others Rich: How Authors Can Make Bank Selling Direct
Bookvault runs an online shop called The Great British Bookshop. Go to TGBBS.co.uk and click on “sell with us” for more info.
In October 2022, Amazon launched Attribution Links, so that people sending traffic to Amazon through either Facebook ads for their websites can track how many clicks they’ve had from a specific source
On the subject of AI:
If you are looking for the best tools for the AI job, check out the website futuretools.io.
There was discussion about how one day AI will be able to provide the perfect personal assistant. Well…check out rolemodel.ai.
Turn your book into manga: Giga Manga
Looking for an AI writing partner? Search “Sudowrite”.
Want to turn your book into audio with the help of AI for low outlay? Search for “Eleven Labs”. I’ve just trialled it and it blew my tiny brain. I’ve sent them an email to ask about pricing for Indie authors and I’ll get back to you when I have an answer.
That’s it for now. In the meantime, I suggest you block off March 12-14 for next year’s London Book Fair.