Update (December 2024): In 2012, I wrote an earlier version of this article as a warning to self-published authors who fall prey to scams that take advantage of the highly recognized industry trade show, BookExpo (also known as BEA).
BookExpo no longer exists, but there are other trade shows, especially international trade shows, where the industry gathers. A few of the biggest include Frankfurt Book Fair, London Book Fair, and Bologna Children’s Book Fair.
While these trade fairs do what they can to educate and protect authors from making expensive mistakes, be smart and do your research before you make any trade show (those meant for publishing industry professionals and employees) part of your marketing, publicity, and PR plan. Most authors should not pay for visibility at these shows if they are not in attendance themselves in partnership with a publisher, agency or some other organization.
First, a little background: What are publishing industry trade shows?
Trade shows are large gatherings of publishing industry professionals, primarily publishers, literary agents, book scouts, and people who sell/buy rights or license intellectual property. They are important primarily to large traditional publishers.
The bulk of any trade show consists of an exhibit floor where publishers purchase booth space to show off their upcoming titles (and authors), sell rights, and network with colleagues. There’s typically a separate rights area where literary agents have tables. Important distributors, retailers and service providers may also exhibit or attend.
Do authors attend trade shows?
Yes, but usually at the invitation of their publisher or some other organization—sometimes the trade show itself. Every year, traditional publishers decide what specific titles they want to market at trade shows, and may invite the authors to do signings or events meant to bring visibility to the work pre-publication. Remember that “visibility” in this context means visibility to the trade (the industry), not visibility to consumers.
Sometimes self-publishing authors (typically those who are bestsellers) will also attend because they have rights deals to conduct or otherwise have numerous business partners at the show.
Should authors attend a trade show?
If you’re a professional author with a significant history of sales, and already know of other professionals you could potentially meet and network with, then it may be a good opportunity to attend. However, this is not a good opportunity for an author who has just published their first book, and thinks attending might fix their marketing and promotion problems. It will not.
Most important, trade shows are not a shortcut to getting up close and personal with traditional publishers or literary agents, in the hopes one of them will publish or represent your book. You’ll greatly annoy people if you go pitching on the floor, unless it has to do with subrights or licensing. If that is indeed your goal, you should have a very polished pitch, and demonstrate a successful track record. Best-case scenario: set up meetings in advance and don’t ambush people.
Most trade shows are not interested in unaffiliated authors walking the floor, because every editor/agent hides from the author who is pitching their work, especially self-published work that hasn’t sold well.
Avoid paying to have your book promoted at trade shows
There are a handful of opportunities for self-publishing or independent authors to get visibility for their work at trade shows even if they do not attend. As far as I’m concerned—as someone who attended these shows for 20+ years—it is not worth the investment. Here’s why.
- The emphasis of the show is on traditional publishing, rights sales and pre-publication marketing, and does not favor self-published title promotion. These are massive, busy shows where traditional publishing insiders talk to other traditional publishing insiders. Yes, there may be some librarians and booksellers, but they’re rarely paying attention to the places where a self-published book may be showcased or promoted.
- Nobody is going to notice your book there. Your book is likely to be promoted with many other books, with no way of attracting attention even if someone did pause for a second within 50 feet of your book. Imagine setting a copy of your book down in the world’s largest book fair, and expecting someone to not only notice it, but be entranced by it so much they can ignore 10,000 other things happening at the same time.
- If you—the author—are not present to advocate for it, your book doesn’t stand a chance. Services that offer to promote your book are rarely, if ever, hand-selling or promoting your book in a meaningful way. But they will be happy to cash your check and say that your book had a “presence” at the show. If you want to satisfy your ego, go ahead. But it’s not going to lead to meaningful sales. (I challenge anyone in the comments to provide evidence that a self-published book gained traction at a trade show because the author paid a fee to secure placement—and the author was not present.)
Trade shows are quality events, and they present a legitimate marketing and promotion opportunity for some authors and some books. But for the vast majority of authors, it does not make sense to invest what are likely your limited resources in these shows.
For more insight and advice
- Read Orna Ross at ALLi on what book fairs (may) offer indie authors
- Indie author David Gaughran has long warned against book fairs
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
You’ve read my post incorrectly. I’m telling people not to pay to have their book promoted at BEA by a third party. Big difference.
Furthermore, authors are not meant to attend BEA unless it’s at the invitation of their publisher.
What about Kirkus marketing services? I’m hesitant about self-publishing, being good at promoting others if I put my mind to it, but hopeless at doing for my own work. Someone sent me a link to Kirkus services today, it sounds expensive.
Are you interested in Kirkus online advertising packages? If so, I wouldn’t advise buying into it unless you really understand online advertising, i.e., you know what CTR means, you know the importance of conversions, you have experience writing online copy that produces conversions. Online ads can be next to useless unless (1) you’re targeting the right audience (2) you know what to tell the audience to make them buy after they click.
Pass. I think you’re saving people a lot of trouble 🙂
Totally agree with this and I applaud you for stating it so boldly. SO proud to know you.
Hi Jane – I agree with you in general, but there are two instances that I do think have value – 1) if you have a distributor, displaying in their booth and supplying the reps with a sell sheet about your book, and 2) the IBPA booth gets a lot of traffic, provides a nice catalog for librarians and book sellers to take, every book is categorized and face out and the booth is manned by knowledgeable people. Their Ben Franklin award winners are displayed separately and get a lot of attention.
I agree. If you have a well-known distributor in the business, maybe. If you’re an award winner, maybe. I still think the value is very limited, so I wouldn’t steal funds from other marketing and promotion efforts in order to do it.
Thanks – keep the advice coming.
[…] Authors: Don’t Pay Money for BEA Book Promotion, by Jane Friedman – “This advice is for self-published authors, independent authors, […]
It is amazing to me that anyone would think for a moment that paying your way into an event like this is a wise decision. The folks selling these sorts of “services” have no interest at all in the success of a book or its author; their only objective is selling the “spot”. Once that is accomplished everything else is less than secondary.
The same sort of money extraction scheme shows up with each issue of the New York Review of Books. Huge, two page advertisements dotted with a couple dozen vanity published books. If the company responsible for putting these ads together had any real interest in selling the books featured they would surely give at least a cursory glance and editorial once over to the “ad copy” next to each book cover image and ISBN code. But once they have extracted the rather sizable sum of money from the unfortunate hopefuls what is the point of actually helping them sell a book or two? That’s not part of their business plan.
Hear, hear.
[…] professor Jane Friedman, who hosts the Ether here at her site, posted her excellent warning, Authors: Don’t Pay Money for BEA Book Promotion, just as I’d been reading an arresting series of comments on a blog post titled Who Controls […]
On a related note, what do you think of people offering a paid service for writers to pitch book ideas at the BEA? These are not agents. Agents do this for free. I know a few people who go every year and get paid big bucks for this service. Agents don’t appreciate them much. I advise my clients to just find an agent.
I haven’t heard of such services, so it’s tough to comment. I’d probably avoid.
Agents pitch books at conventions? I can’t see any advantage here. Any agent worth having, has a network of hundreds of AE’s that they can call or write every day of the ear.
Thank you so much for this information as I was just about to do so; I did, however, wonder about exposure for my book while not able to be there in person. You are a life/money saver. I wish there were more like you. My book, When Pigs Fly; A Journey Home, will have to fly to new heights on its own…thank you, thank you.
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