Robert Fisher of Echo Letterpress

First of all Robert, thanks for taking time out from your very busy schedule, and congratulations on the recent addition to your family. By way of introduction, tell us a bit about Christina and yourself.

Christina and I are both graphic designers. She has a BFA in Visual Communications from Virginia Commonwealth University and I have a BFA from the University of South Carolina and an MFA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, both in graphic design. We spent ten years in Manhattan working in the design world. Christina’s work was focused on textile graphics and corporate design work in both print and interactive. I started in NYC as an art director in publishing doing book design and magazines (with a 3.5 year stint at Martha Stewart Living) and then moved into interactive as the dot com bubble grew. We both worked on major brands such as Crayola, Little Tikes, Fed Ex, Nissan, Gucci, Prada, United Airlines and Motorola. We also have a passion for not-for-profit and educational work, which never pays well but is very rewarding.

Why did you decide to leave the fast lane in Manhattan for upstate New York?

We needed a change. The high-paced lifestyle was all-consuming. Christina was a creative director at Foot, Cone and Belding and I was VP Creative Director at IconNicholson and we both felt like we’d moved away from our roots, a love of typography, paper and creating beautiful things that people cherish and covet. We felt removed from our craft and wanted to get back into the hands on process of designing. In June of 2006 we moved to our country house near Jeffersonville fulltime.

What drew you to the noble art of printing?

A love of letters and paper. We both learned letterpress as part of our design training (typography as we know it today really started with the invention of movable type c.1440). We are both type nerds and can spend hours fussing over typefaces, leading, kerning and the endless machinations that come with a love of letters. We are kind of snobs when it comes to printing. If it’s not letterpress we rarely get excited.

How did you acquire your equipment?

Christina quit her Job on January 1, 2006 to start the process of setting up our new business. She began researching presses online, spending a lot of time at Briar Press (www.briarpress.org), a great resource for letterpress aficionados. We learned a lot about what we really needed to get started. Every week we would look for auctions on eBay, or presses for sale on Briar Press. We realized that we had to find a press that wasn’t too far away as moving it would likely cost as much, or more, than the press itself. While looking for a single press to start out on we found an amazing auction: it was an entire shop. The pictures looked too good to be true. We started asking the seller questions and found out the auction was actually for two Chandler and Price platen presses, a paper cutter, and lots of type. We watched it for days and waited until the last day to bid. The auction was to end at 8 am and the free open wireless internet that we relied on in our apartment was down so Christina had to run to the local coffee shop to place our bid. I had a client meeting uptown so I wouldn’t know the outcome until hours later. Christina left me a flat message on my phone to call her for an update on the auction. Of course I assumed we were outbid at the last second, but she was only baiting me for a big surprise.

We won the auctions for just over $4100. Two weeks later we drove to Auburn, MA and found, to our surprise, a two level backyard print shop packed to the rafters with equipment and paper. With hardly enough room to walk around, we started the process of loading up our very large U-Haul truck.

What we actually found under the boxes of paper and ephemera was: two 8 x 10 Chandler and Price Old Style platen presses (circa 1901 and 1904), a Kelsey Star 5 x 7 platen press (circa 1901), a very small table top Kelsey press, a 19.5 inch Oswego guillotine paper cutter (c. 1890s), 100+ drawers of metal foundry type, 28 drawers of wood type in various sizes and fonts, a saddle stitching machine (circa 1910), and all the essential tools of the trade one needs to run an authentic letterpress shop. We felt very lucky.

After two long and exciting days of discovery and packing we were almost done. The third morning we tied up the load and drove to Liberty, NY where we stored everything. We left the presses and paper cutter behind, and hired a rigging service to move them three weeks later. Total moving costs were just over $4000. We saved thousands moving all the type and small equipment ourselves.

For those who are not familiar with the hand printing press process, bring us through a typical job from beginning to end.

Letterpress is a process of creating a relief image and pressing it into or onto a surface—much like a rubber stamp. Typically you need to set the type one letter at a time (backwards and upside down), locking up the type into a chase (a metal frame). Any artwork to be printed must be made into a relief image as well (either using magnesium or photopolymer plates). Once everything you want to print is locked up it is called a form. This form is placed into the bed of the press. Here the press rollers will ink the form and transfer the image onto the paper. Before printing one must set gauge pins (also called quad guides) on the press platen to keep the paper aligned with the form. Once the alignment is set the pressure of the press must be adjusted (according to the paper weight and the size of the form to be printed). This is called makeready. Paper packing on the press must be adjusted to create an even impression over the entire printed surface. Once the makeready is done the job is ready to print, one sheet at a time. The average makeready process usually takes about 10-30 minutes, but sometimes we can spend hours getting it just right.

Of course if the job is more than one color this process must be repeated for each color. Printing on both sides of a sheet also requires multiple passes through the press, and a new makeready process.

What type of work are you doing now?

Our presses are on the small side (8 x 10 inches), so we are limited to smaller works. We design and print wedding invitations for clients around the world (recently completed jobs were for weddings in Cape Cod, West Point and Singapore). We also have our own line of greeting cards that we sell in our stationery store. We will begin selling wholesale greeting cards later this fall. High-end business cards and birth announcements also make up a smaller portion of our monthly work. We also print woodblock posters (10 x 16 max size) on a limited basis because we need to print them in two halves. We’re in the discussion stage with a few authors to create a series of chap books this winter.

Do you advertise, or is word of mouth enough?

We do not advertise. Most of our work comes from word of mouth or passersby in Jeffersonville. The stationery store is a loss leader for us—it barely breaks even, but it gives us a lot of visibility on Main Street. The past year we had invitations featured in two national magazines: Martha Stewart Weddings and Real Simple Weddings. Obviously this kind of exposure can really kick start your business. We are quite sick of printing these featured designs at this point.

Tell us about your favorite papers and typefaces.

Paper: Crane Lettra. It’s the only paper DESIGNED for letterpress. It’s a super fluffy 100% rag paper that takes a really nice impression. It’s made from textile scraps and cotton left in the seed pod, and it’s (sort of) local. The mill is in Dalton, MA and is very eco-friendly. It’s also relatively inexpensive compared to imported Italian papers.

Typefaces: We love the classics. News Gothic, Garamond, Caslon, Frutiger, Helvetica, etc., but we also use some of the newer typefaces. We’re purists, but we’re not THAT pure when it comes to type. We’ll even use a drop shadow when we need to pump up the kitsch factor!

Do you create your own design work plates?

No, we use two plate makers. Boxcar Press in Syracuse for photopolymer plates and Owosso Graphic Arts for metal plates. We email our work out and the plates arrive two days later. It’s not worth it to have all that plate making equipment.

Although your operation is starting to get into full swing, and you bring a real graphic design edge to the business, it must be frustrating sometimes puzzling over techniques that were commonplace back in the heyday of hand presses. Are there any modern day expert practitioners you can turn to, and do you belong to any fine press organizations?

This is a big problem. All the old practitioners of letterpress are either dead or getting up there in years. We’ve met some old timers in Sullivan County and we call on a few of them for help when we feel stumped on a job. We’ve also been in correspondence (via snail mail) with the former owner of our presses. He’s taught us some ‘tricks’ over the years, although his eyesight is failing and he’s going into a nursing home. He’s 90 years old and started printing when he was 16. He ran his backyard print shop for over 50 years. He’s a wealth of information that we’re going to miss. We hope that one day we can teach someone else what we are learning now (our four month old son will no doubt be our first target).

Sullivan County is my ancestral home, and I found your business while doing some preliminary research on who might publish a compilation of local Civil War letters I purchased at auction. Have you tackled any books yet?

Not yet, but as I previously said, we are working on a project to create some chap books of poetry this winter. It’s a very cool project. We are looking for a larger press which will put us in a better position to tackle books. Christina has some experience in book binding that she’d like to get back into. It’s something we’d like to offer, but letterpressed books can be very expensive to produce.

Your print shop is right on Main Street in Jeffersonville, NY. Tell us about the town, and about the Segar Building.

We purchased our building in August, 2006. It was a 1950s Sinclair gas station, home of Segar Oil, a family run business that closed in the late ‘80s. It’s an American classic with a porcelain enamel facade. The building was vacant for 18 years when we purchased it from the Segar family estate. For the first time since 1883 the property changed hands.

The building needed a lot of work, but we wanted to restore it rather than remodel/alter. After six months of work we moved the presses in and started setting up shop, which took another six months. We opened to the public on September 1, 2007.

The building sits at the end of Main Street in Jeffersonville, NY, a small Catskill village of about 350 souls. It’s a sleepy little town that comes alive on weekends due to a large second home market. We’re certainly the most unique business in a town full of eateries, home décor and antique shops. Jeffersonville is only two hours from Manhattan, so we can run down for a quick ‘city fix’ which usually involves a meal at our favorite sushi restaurant.

Thanks again Robert. Best wishes with your growing family and wonderful business, don’t work too hard, and save some time for trout fishing.

Robert and Christina Fisher run Echo Letterpress in Jeffersonville, NY and can be contacted at http://www.echoletterpress.com.

#publishers

Author Profile: Matthew Eck

Matthew Eck is the 2007 runner-up for the Barnes and Noble Discover Award for his first novel, The Farther Shore (ISBN 1571310576), released through Milkweed Editions publishing group. The Farther Shore is a gripping, haunting short novel about the effects of war set in the troubled nation of Somalia. The novel was universally well received, with comparisons to other accomplished novelists such as Hemingway and Tim O’Brien—very distinguished company indeed.

In The Farther Shore, Matthew Eck puts the reader inside the world of a fragmented country where gangs and warlords rule and where there is little regard for life as we know it. In 1992, when a small unit of soldiers from the U.S. Army is separated from their command and left for dead, their only option is to “keep moving” in hope that they will escape those marauding gangs and clansmen who rule the city of Mogadishu with an iron clad fist. In scenes reminiscent of Dante’s horrific description of the journey through the Inferno, Eck expertly moves the reader through horrifying violent encounters where one by one the members of the small American unit are tragically lost. Eck brilliantly engages the reader with ghostly images where the characters are both human and inhuman—a mirror image to the violence of war.

Eck enlisted in the Army in 1992 and served in both Somalia and Haiti. He has a B.A. in English Literature from Wichita State University and a Master’s in Creative Writing from the University of Montana. He currently is a popular professor of Creative Writing at a small college in the Midwest—the University of Central Missouri. Eck lives in the Kansas City area with his wife Katie and young son Cormac (any guess as to who he is named after?). His wife is due to deliver their second child at any time. Eck enjoys teaching and interacting with his students as they also pursue their own writing careers. He has a full schedule at work and home and values his cherished spare time to write.

Eck is currently finishing up his second novel, which does not concern war despite having some violent characters. He has plans to return to a “war setting” for his third novel. I recently had a conversation with the young author where he answered questions not only about The Farther Shore and his upcoming second novel, but also about his writing style and how he goes about his daily busy schedule with little free time available to him.

In a recent review, I described the way I felt while reading The Farther Shore as having a “sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach and a lump in my throat at the same time,” and I described the book as a “crying out for no more war.” Also, for the book’s characters, survival meant they were forced oftentimes to observe war and the violence around them from an isolated “farther shore.” Do you feel these are accurate descriptions?

I think your descriptions are perfect. The Farther Shore is my hymn against war. I imagine it is what most war writers hope for, deep down inside, that they can change the world for the better with their writing. They do observe the war from The Farther Shore—they’re victims and participants, but more importantly, they bear witness to that around them. They physically bear the weight of the war and all the memories they’re making.

While reading The Farther Shore I felt that the characters in your story had, above all else, an overwhelming feeling of detachment. It wasn’t so much as if they were fighting for their survival—it was, to me, as if they were fighting to disassociate themselves from any possible memory of Somalia and the violence, if they were to survive. As a veteran of the Somalia action, is this what you also felt? Is that what you were trying to convey to the reader? The characters seemed more and more detached from the violence as the story went on. At the beginning there seemed to be some apathy for those killed or wounded, but as the novel and the suspense grew it seemed that they took everything that happened in stride.

I think memory is the key word there. Stantz says in the end that he won’t remember it all, an obvious lie, built as much for those asking the question as for himself. I think the reason for the “keep moving” attitude served two purposes. First, they are more and more exhausted as the novel goes on. They’re physically, emotionally—and in the sense of belief—spiritually exhausted as they are forced to make decisions and accept the consequences of their actions. The other reason for the “keep going” attitude was to keep the plot moving so that the reader can share in the burden of the experience with the characters.

Our readers are interested in all aspects of the creative style. Jack London had a saying, “A thousand words a morning.” Do you have a set schedule you are firm with for your daily work? How do you juggle your writing needs in with being a busy professor of Creative Writing? Do you write at home or at the “office?” Is writing a difficult process for you or does it come easily?

I try to write at least a thousand words a day or put in four hours writing and editing. So much depends on my teaching schedule and my wife and son’s schedule as well. My teaching load is insane at the moment. I teach four courses a semester. I look forward to my summers.

The Katie and Cormac schedule is wonderful though. We have another one on the way, so I can’t wait to make time for them as well. All writers have to figure out how to make their time work. We all have 24 hours in a day. Some days you are selfish with your time and some days you are kind with your time. I write in my office at home. We’re in the midst of buying me a door for my office. When Cormac was born my office didn’t have a door. I was going over the manuscript for The Farther Shore and I would hear Cormac cooing in the next room while I worked on a scene about killing children. It was tough. If he’s home when I’m writing he’ll stop by to chat about baboons and such. I like to hug him. I enjoy my space when I write. I like to pace and drink coffee. I open books by dead authors at random and read what they have to say. Sometimes the writing is easy and sometimes it is hard. Most days it’s hard. I can whip myself with self-doubt like no one. It’d be nice if it were all the roses of happiness. But, alas, the well of despair is deep, the forest is dark and deep, and the trail is full of peril.

What can we expect to see in the future from Mr. Matthew Eck? Do you think Joshua Ferris deserved to win the Discover Award?

I’m working on a new novel. It’s about killers. It’s about a character that I’ve had in the back of my mind for years now. It’s not a war story though. It’s about the lies someone will believe in order to live their life between the long stretches of darkness that fall in front of it and behind it. I think I’ll probably visit the war story again soon though. I care deeply about veterans, for all the obvious reasons. My heart goes out to all the soldiers out there in the world and I’m always thinking of stories I can share with them. And yes, Joshua Ferris is an amazing writer; he deserves all the praise that he’s received. He’s intelligent and gifted. I thought Vida’s book [Vendela Vita—another Discover Award runner-up] was remarkable as well. Either one of them could have won it.

How did you hook up with Milkweed over the other big publishing houses? Will that relationship continue?

My agent sent it to Daniel Slager and the rest is history as they say. She had a feeling that we would work well together. As I say in the acknowledgments page, he found the heart of the novel and edited it true. I’m honored to be at Milkweed and I would love to work with Daniel again. I learned a great deal from his edits and requests and we can get along very well. Like all writers I just want to get my work out there into the world and get it to as many readers as possible. Publishing is a wonderful business and writers switch houses all the time for all the obvious reasons.

Are you one of those writers that feels they should write only about things they are familiar with in their lives—say like fighting in Somalia? If so, what else has happened to Matthew Eck that you would like to write about? And will it always be fiction?I think writers should write about whatever they want. Men can write about women, dogs can write about cats, and on and on. Oh, what hasn’t happened to me that would be interesting to write about? I like going to the grocery store. Something fun always happens. The craziest person in the place usually finds me and starts a conversation. I used to think that you had to “own” the experience in order to write about it. But these days I like to watch people and I like to try and figure out what it is they’re doing, what they’re about, and what their lives might look like on the page. What would happen if I sent character A to a petting zoo? That kind of stuff. Empathy. Some days I write to teach myself empathy. To teach myself to be a better person.

Was the title The Farther Shore your idea?

My wife helped me with that one. It’s a line from Dante:

As, in the autumn, leaves detach themselves, First one and then the other, till the bough Sees all its fallen garments on the ground, Similarly, the evil seed of Adam Descended from the shoreline one by one, When signaled, as a falcon—called—will come. So they move across the darkened waters [all those souls]; Even before they reach the farther shore, New ranks already gather on this bank.

Stephen Parker operates Classic First Editions LLC out of Orange, CA and can be contacted at http://www.classicfirsteditions.com.

Bruce Gventer of B&S Gventer Books and Ephemera and babf Promotions

Hi Bruce. Thanks for discussing the ins, outs, ups and downs of organizing book fairs. Before we get into it, can you tell us a little about your early background?

I was working in the high tech industry in NYC in the late 70s when we moved to Berkshire County, MA where there was no high tech industry yet. I was looking for a career, saw a store for rent in South Egremont for $75 a month, and decided I should be able to sell something to cover the rent. Both my wife Sue and I loved books, so we decided to try selling used books. We were new to the book world and bought every used book we came across, including many non-sellable items, which was a good lesson in what to never purchase again. Every summer we had a huge tent sale. We did a great deal of reading/research and attending book auctions religiously in order to learn the business. After two years we discovered book fairs, and after the first show we learned that you could, in fact, make a living at this if you put yourself where there are more people than are found in an isolated rural town.

Tell us about your specialties as a bookseller.

After three years we built a book barn on our property in South Egremont. Our first specialty was 19th century hand colored illustrated books, as I was intrigued by the amount of individual labor involved in the process. Our next specialty became medieval manuscript pages, sparked by the discovery of a page priced at $300 at a book fair on Long Island. After this aroused my curiosity, I met Nick Pavlov, who explained that the item I had noticed was an original page from the Johannes Gutenberg Bible worth close to $10,000. I made an appointment to visit Nick at his home in order to view his collection. I convinced my wife to join me, worried that I could/would easily spend all of our money on these intense individualized works of art, where as many as four people could be responsible for the writing, the artwork, and the gold leafing/drawing on one single page. While reviewing the pages with Sue, she began creating a small pile and a large pile, and I soon discovered that the larger pile were those most to her liking. Interestingly enough, I spent more money by bringing my wife than I would have if I had gone alone. I now specialize in Antiphonal pages as well.

While I now boast a broad range of specialties including children’s books, cookbooks, art and architecture, and engravings and maps, with the addition of my new partner D. Curto and her genuine interest in vintage documents, photographs, comic books etc., ephemera has also become a great and interesting specialty of the business.

May we assume that you have participated in book fairs early on strictly as a seller and found some were run better than others?

I have exhibited at as many as 30 shows in one given year, and find them to be run on many different levels.

How did you get into the book fair promotion part of the business?

The managers of the Stockbridge Antiquarian Book Fair were retiring and approached me to continue the show. I realized that my best sales came from show exhibitions, and as I also did not want to lose that show, I took it over.

Do you maintain a table at your own book fairs?

One of the main reasons that I promote book fairs is so that I have places to sell from.

What were some of your greatest buys ever at book fairs?

I consistently shop at book fairs and have owned some of the rarest items for sometimes only minutes at a time before they were purchased from me. The best thing I ever found was an Egyptian Papyrus from 1500 BC at a small show in Cazenovia, NY.

What states do you work in?

From the beginning, I always exhibited/promoted in New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Maine. I later added New Jersey.

In 2006, due to her interest and excitement in the business, my new partner began exhibiting for me at paper shows in Pennsylvania and antique shows in Atlanta, North Carolina, Washington, D.C. and Texas. She then began buying in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and the Carolinas on her way home.

Roughly how many fairs have you produced over the years?

Close to 100 shows since 1985. Some shows were dropped and others were added.

Is the business financially self-sustaining?

While selling books and ephemera can be profitable, one is constantly putting money out in order to replace inventory. In the promotion business there can be a lot of risks involved. One show might make a profit and another might endure a loss.

Why and how did GABF beget babf?

Actually the first business was Berkshire Antiquarian Book Fairs which I named babf when I produced outside of the Berkshires in Litchfield, Connecticut and Portland, Maine. GABF started later as the Greenwich Connecticut Antiquarian Book Fair when I took on a partner and began NYC book fairs as GABF/babf Promotions. Last year I dissolved the GABF partnership and took on D. Curto as a new partner with babf Promotions.

What does a Creative Director bring to the tables, as it were?

D. Curto came to me in 2006, when I was in the process of designing a website and considering the internet for additional business. I placed an ad to have someone research and input the book related information online, and D. was in the process of recreating herself and her lifestyle in order to care for her mother back here in NY. Ironically, after meeting D., we never completed the internet process.

With over 30 years as a visual merchandiser, D. first began her own business of window display as “Definitely D” in the Bronx. In the late 80s she moved to Florida where she began working for the likes of Jacobson’s Stores, Saks Fifth Avenue and the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, where she produced window displays, fashion shows, high end events and innovative floral designs as a freelance artist. She also worked as marketing director and public relations manager for a major real estate developer in Florida, producing ground breaking events (and even book fairs) while designing brochures and promotional items for the company. D. joined Neiman Marcus in 2000 as a Visual Presentation Manager in Tampa, and was later promoted to the Neiman Marcus flagship store in Dallas, TX. The question should read what doesn’t D. Curto, my Creative Director, bring to the table?

As Creative Director for babf antiquarian book and ephemera events, working full time either onsite or from her private design studio, D. is responsible for executing creative direction, art direction and team strategy; determining event site location and event production needs; overall direction, strength, profile, output, and excellence of the company, as well as the tone and quality of company interactions and collaborations; and creative management and development for babf Promotions, designing promotional and marketing/advertising materials and consulting on www.bookfairs.com web design.

Your shows (whoops…fairs) have a reputation for elegance. How is this achieved?

It is a “show” by all means of the word, but books always seems to make it a book “fair!” We remain conscious of and careful not to confuse the customer, who has seen the word “fair” for a long time now. Elegance came with the arrival of D. Curto. When we met, D. became so absorbed in the presentation side of the business that she basically took it over. After walking through and shopping my booth, my regular clients would then ask me if in fact this was my booth. D. truly has the ability to create and present things in an alluring manner. With my shows promotion and her organization skills and show production background we have produced great results. The first thing she mentioned (after seeing the different colored tablecloths that each vendor would bring to my shows) was that we needed to provide uniform tablecloths ourselves for consistency. She then added a champagne service, floral decorations, and most recently, a harpist as an added touch of, well, elegance. Obviously I am very happy to have D. Curto “behind the curtain.”

How does one buy or take over an existing book fair?

I am typically approached by other show managers due to the fact that I have been in the business for over 20 years. They appreciate that I come from the book selling aspect of the business, which just helps/works overall.

How do “satellite” book fairs work? Don’t they present some negatives for the more established fair?

While the book world has its competitive aspects, I like to think that we can do better when the customer gets caught up in the options and combination of shows exhibiting simultaneously. We have actually hired buses in order to transport book shoppers from our shows to other shows and of course from their shows to ours, as a customer courtesy.

Bruce, take us on an impressionistic journey through a typical fair as if you were explaining it to somebody who has never attended one, from the time you are the first one through the doors until you finally leave two or three days later.

Months and months precede the preparation of a successful event. D. is constantly researching marketing and presentation standards/options, while I am constantly referencing my past contacts/resources (over 20 years of a collected client database and knowledge of the book world). From load-in day through the end of the show, with D. now on board, we are reinventing the process as we speak, so maybe I can better address this in the future!

Who do you usually work with when booking a venue?

I used to work with all the same people/processes/locations, however D. now insists on visual appeal combined with location, location, location. Our last show took place in a beautiful loft, most commonly used for weddings and high end events/fashion shows. With Hunter College, our most recently acquired venue, D. was adamant about the location, even though with a gymnasium she has given herself quite the challenge. I utilized my book world contacts in order to open some (let’s just say) “closed” doors, so we have a great location, and it will cost us to give it visual appeal.

The logistics of organizing a book fair must be mind boggling, particularly in New York City. How do you do it? What things do you have to take care of?

Parking is the ultimate nightmare, and the exhibitor load-in process can sometimes be exhausting and difficult. D. has this amazing ability to network, partner and build relationships. We will produce this upcoming show with all of that and more in place.

What about insurance?

We buy show management insurance for each production.

Amid the fine wares, scholarship, mentoring, and pockets of humility at a high-end book fair, there is a good deal of puffery, one-upmanship, and even the occasional obfuscation. What are the most common complaints booksellers are apt to make about each other?

My approach is to always build support and I consistently try not to partake in any of the drama and cajoling so to speak. I have always had a reputation for being fair and considerate in both my pricing and in my business, and D. is the queen of diplomacy and consideration, always attempting to please everyone. At our show last April, she asked that I turn the air conditioning on and off every ten minutes, and we took turns doing so because some exhibitors were cold and some were hot! As both exhibitors and as show promoters in most cases, if you care about people, they tend to try (at least) to care back.

What are the most common customer complaints?

Customers always want new product or new exhibitors, and diversity. They are not happy if they come though the door and cannot find something/anything to add to their collection. They all want to get in there and get it before someone else does!

You receive many accolades and compliments, and things usually go splendidly, but what are some of the worst specific things that ever happened at your fairs?

For some reason, it is always about the parking and exhibitor load-in or load-out process. The shows/fairs typically go well for the most part. We try to run the shows so that if problems arise, no one actually knows that there are any problems.

I started doing book shows before the online revolution and found this to be an invaluable learning experience. As one small example, I was swarmed for under priced bargains at my first show, and later raided newbies myself before the opening bell for the same reason. Even today, aspiring booksellers in many parts of the country can find entry-level shows that will provide a more rounded experience. For awhile there the internet was hurting buyer and seller attendance at the better shows, partly because there are fewer greatly underpriced bargains to be had, and partly because it can be easier and less expensive to buy and sell from home. Has this leveled off?

While I did attempt to join the online revolution, I never left the book fair market. I actually refused to get caught up in the frenzy. While many people capitalized online, I stood fast to the idea that I, as a buyer, always wanted to see, touch and feel the product. I found most of my customers agreed, and they remained in the market and at the fairs. There are others who do quite well online and enjoy the armchair opportunity to shop/search.

One can never be too sure where it will go or end up, but there will always be an individual approach to the process itself, which will hopefully sustain us all at some level. I still have plans to get my product online and on my website to encourage additional sales. It is my understanding that some dealers had a very difficult time with the online revolution, but I believe it is all in the understanding, concept and approach. You have to keep up both the buying side and the selling side, both in person and online. I have noticed that many exhibitors have returned to my book fairs from the online world.

What fairs do you have coming up in 2008?

Visit our website at www.bookfairs.com for all of not only our upcoming show promotions, but those of other management companies as well.

Thanks again for your time and insights Bruce. I’ll stop in and buy something from you the next time I pass through the lovely town of South Egremont. Probably an illuminating book rather than one of those illuminated pages.

Bruce Gventer operates B&S Gventer Books and Ephemera in, and babf out of, South Egremont, MA and can be contacted at http://www.bookfairs.com.

#booksellers