Regardless of your genre, whether it's westerns or crime fiction. romance or non-fiction, decidely you will share something with writers of other genres: the need for promtotion of what you have written.

While the world wide web has made available new sytems of marketing to authors, from websites and weblogs to sites like myspace, facebook, and the small press exchange, there is still something to be said for meeting readership where they make themselves available -- small press book fairs, conferences and conventions.

Conventions are held globally, regardless of the season. Any small press publisher who is serious about examining the industry beyond the superficial level, would do well to make time to attend at least one small press book fair, or conference per year.

Some may require travel and other expenses: ie hote, table rentals, the cost of promotional materials, accommodations, but above this all you may justify expenses because of the ppportunity to exposeyour name and work to a new audience that is afforded you. You will not make great sales every time, at every event you attend, but you have at least the chance to get your name out! Word of mouth remains one of, if not the strongest, marketing tools for authors and small press publishers.

The 2007 Buffalo Small Press Book Fair took place on March 31, 2007 from noon to 6pm. The event was held at the Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum on Porter Avenue in Buffalo, New York.

The book fair was a one day event that brought together booksellers, authors, bookmakers, zinesters, small presses, artists, poets, and regional cultural workers of all kinds in an absolutely amazing venue. Poetry readings, performances, discussions, and related lectures also took place throughout the day. Jessica Smith (who I, disappointingly, didn't get a chance to talk to) wrote up a nice piece here on the event. The fair was a tremendous success-a great crowd rolled in. Karpeles (the venue) was just beautiful. We were blessed with a cool little corner right kind of wedged in between Gustave Morin, Rob Read and Daniel Bradley on one side and BookThug on the other. It was cool, because our books really just sold themselves - a surprising number of people were familiar with the press (more and more every year). Even more were familiar with our authors - thanks to Jerry Rothenberg and Jim Daniels regularly making their way up to Buffalo and Jesse for returning each and every year to establish a readership in Maryland and New York State! All of our titles sold - the new titles as well as those in our catalog - as well as the books of our friends at West House and Ikuta Press. In a day or two, I'll get up a post about all of the people we met and books I snagged. But just wanted to thank everybody who attended the fair and especially the organizers (thanks Chris and Aaron and Kevin and everyone else involved). Snapped lots of pictures, too!

This just in from Chris "Thanks to everyone for a great event! 800-1200 attendees, happy vendors, just about everything you could ask for!"

Ahadada agrees!