Leave it to the rookies to shake things up. Ann Binkley and Edward Nawotka were hardly new to the book biz — Binkley most recently PR director at Borders, and Nawotka an editor at PW — but they were admittedly novices at organizing book festivals. So, they thought, why don’t we ask the pros? At the recent BEA, the two (she now runs New York is Book Country and he is program director for the Texas Book Festival) hosted a “Best Practices” roundtable for book festival organizers. Expecting about a dozen attendees, they were shocked to find a packed room of about 80 — including representatives from Little Rock, Ark., Honolulu, and Jamaica. A sort of literary glasnost was born, and they are already in discussions with BEA to expand it next year. Ironically, as book festivals proliferate, stats suggest Americans read less and less.
The concerns voiced at that meeting ranged from questions about how the smaller, non-profit festivals could draw popular, nationally recognized authors (Nawotka says one answer is to try to coordinate with authors that are already on tour in the region), to how to attract wider audiences (have panels that link books with other pop culture interests such as film and fashion) to very basic how-tos. With some exceptions like the LA Times’ Festival of Books, most of the festivals are nonprofit, and so don’t have large budgets to pay the authors. So, “publishers have to be willing to supply authors,” Nawotka says, adding that it’s to their benefit as well. “We do sell a lot of books. Some authors sell 400 to 500 books per event.” It’s also important for festival organizers to “satisfy local interests and needs, as well as expose them to nationally known authors. You have to bring [the latter] in because it’s something that’s otherwise not available” for readers who don’t live in major metropolitan centers.
No matter how important a book festival is to its community, none is immune to budgetary restrictions. Around the same time the community of Ann Arbor, Michigan, was celebrating its first Ann Arbor Book Festival this April, the board of directors for the 10-year-old Northwest Bookfest was deciding it couldn’t afford to operate in the red any longer, and called 2003 its last. There’s certainly a lot of change in the air, and for every Northwest story, there’s another, more heartening tale. In recent years, we’ve seen the advent of DC’s annual National Book Festival, Laura Bush’s baby which will celebrate its fourth year in October. We’ve also heard success stories like the burgeoning Key West Literary Seminar, which will hold its 23rd annual event next January. Unlike most other festivals, this one requires attendees to pay per event; but despite this, it draws a large attendance and big-named authors, and is sold out a year in advance. Next year’s theme is “Literature of Humor,” and guest writers include Billy Collins and Calvin Trillin. In holding the roundtable at BEA, Binkley and Nawotka wanted to hear some of these success stories.
When he started what is now known as the Miami Book Fair International back in 1984, ABA President Mitchell Kaplan looked to New York is Book Country (NYIBC) as a model. Now, in a flattering act of mimicry, Binkley studied Miami to reinvent the New York festival, which had outgrown its street fair roots. Referring to the expansion of this year’s NYIBC, which will be Oct. 2-3 (the same weekend as the annual celebrity-laden New Yorker Festival), Binkley says, “It’s not a street fair anymore; it’s a literary festival. When it started, this book festival was wonderful. It really hasn’t grown.” The “totally different festival” will include over 150 authors and take place in Washington Square Park and on the adjacent New York University campus, including readings and panels in university lecture halls. “True book lovers want to meet the authors, and this will be the first time they can do that here,” Binkley said. For the first time there will be a Graphic Novels Pavilion, and a large Children’s Pavilion will include the Target-sponsored reading stage with high-profile authors like Jamie Lee Curtis and Lemony Snicket. The publishers and merchandise booths, which used to line Fifth Avenue, will now be in the park, and just on Saturday.
Sufficiently pleased to hear NYIBC looked to his festival for inspiration, Kaplan offered, “In some ways, it’s harder for a festival to distinguish itself in a place like New York. But, I do think they’ll do it.” NYIBC has more competition, with the New Yorker Festival, not to mention year-round readings and literary events at the city’s myriad bookstores, universities and cultural institutions.
Kaplan thinks budgetary problems top most festivals’ list of woes — no matter how big or established. If he had one word of advice for new or struggling festivals, it would be to partner with one or more organizations, such as the Miami festival’s relationship with Miami-Dade Community College. “Those fairs that try to do it alone are having more difficulty,” he said. The college was one of his festival’s founding organizations and has continued to not only financially support it, but houses it and promotes it. “The college has shouldered most of the funding burden that we’ve had. We’ve lost some state funding over the years, and we’re looking to ease some of the burden placed on the college,” Kaplan explained. Plus, the college community is a natural starting point for a reading audience, though Kaplan is proud of the fact that people come from all over the state. Calling it a “beautiful, seamless, public-private affair,” he attributes the Miami festival’s popularity to the diversity of its programming. “We cast a very wide net. We try to have the fair reflect the diversity of the community. We have author programs in Spanish, and writers from the Caribbean and Latin America come. We also have exhibitors from those areas.”
As Nawotka takes the Texas Book Festival into its 9th year, he is trying to balance an obvious literary agenda with satisfying a variety of audiences — a model that has proved popular in Miami, LA and New York. Hence, this year’s planned Tolkien panel will cater to the “big, geeky computer games population,” and the Western wear panel (incorporating Gibbs Smith books on designer Nudie and the history of the western shirt) will draw the stereotypical Texans, and a couple of panel discussions at a local movie theater will highlight Austin’s budding film industry and bring in filmmakers Peter Bogdanovich and Ken Burns. As for the events that used to cost upwards of $100 to attend, such as the “Bon Appetit, Y’All” panel and dinner, the festival has lowered the cost and is having it in a larger venue.
