I went to Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate (to give it its full title) for the first time ever last week and it was exhilarating, fun, slightly scary, exhausting and much hotter than I expected from Yorkshire. I thought I’d share a few impressions with you, but I should preface this by saying that I was there not as a reader and blogger, nor as an author, but as a publisher who did NOT have an author attending, so my views might be slightly different from most other attendees.
- Compact site makes it easy to meet people
I really liked the fact that the programmed events were all in the main tent (although it did get rather hot during the afternoon), and that all of the extra-curricular events were grouped together close by, inside the hotel or in tents dotted on manicured lawns, including the beer-tent and the bookshop. There was quite a bit of seating, and even some shade. This made it easy to wander around from one event to another, even stumble upon them by accident if your programme did not feature them (mine didn’t initially, until I discovered I’d been using an old version of the programme). It also made it easy to spot authors, reviewers and friends – or at least, it would have if my visual memory were a little bit better! But I did get to meet my old online chums from Crime Fiction Lover, Sandra Mangan (who still reviews there) and Luca Veste, who is now an established author and indefatigable committee member and moderator for the festival.
- It is really easy to strike up a conversation
Everyone is there to have fun and share the love of books, so it’s easy to talk to people, and I’m not shy. Although I do feel sorry sometimes for the poor authors who are constantly being mobbed by people like me who tell them ‘we met at Capital Crime/Bristol Crimefest/Newcastle Noir etc. five years ago’ and then smile fetchingly, as if they’re supposed to remember you, when you’re just one of the thousands of people they’ve met at various events over the years. They are generally quite gracious, especially if you say something nice about one of their books (it doesn’t have to be the latest one, which you might not have read yet). It’s even easier to talk about books with readers and bloggers, of course – and I really enjoyed hearing different opinions about translated crime fiction – an opportunity for informal fieldwork/survey.
- Hard not to be envious of the marketing budgets of the big publishers
As a tiny publisher with a very, very limited budget for marketing, I was stunned by the promotional stunts that the big publishers could afford: giveaways including ice-cream and other branded goodies, breakfast buttys and passport photo machines in a pop-up departure lounge for Richard Osman’s new crime series. I had to admire their creativity, but I also wondered if some of the big names really needed that much promotion (and six members of staff being sent to organise it all). There is no way that we could compete with that, and I have to say that most of the flyers, bookmarks, samplers that smaller publishers dispersed around on tables seemed to be ignored by most attendees, so are perhaps not worth the effort. One more cost-effective idea that I liked (and might borrow if we have any of our authors attending next year) was the author wearing a T shirt with the latest book cover and perhaps a brief blurb.
- Not many authors from abroad this year
I wasn’t the only one to notice that there were very few authors attending from abroad – and therefore very little translated crime fiction was represented, which I thought was a shame. Cost is of course the main driver – the organisers were quite frank that they could only afford to invite foreign authors if their publishers pay for their travel costs, which tends to exclude smaller presses. But there is an additional barrier I think to inviting authors who are writing in languages other than English: even if they are pretty fluent in English, they will not necessarily have the witty banter at their fingertips to entertain audiences quite as effectively during an afternoon panel when the heat is making your eyelids droopy… Although there were some very thoughtful contributions on some of the panels I attended, overall the emphasis remains firmly on entertainment rather than information. And I have to admit that with some authors and panels, I couldn’t help feeling that I’d heard it all before at other festivals or bookshop events. I think some of the smaller festivals do a better job of combining established and newer authors, so that the audience can also discover something new – but that is a riskier strategy, of course, when you have to sell a certain number of tickets to make events viable.
PS: In case you are wondering about the title, Home, Thoughts from Abroad is a well-known poem by Robert Browning which I used to recite to myself when I was terribly homesick for England and longed to return here for my Ph.D. It’s a great reminder that although reality is wonderful in its own way, our expectations, memories, nostalgia are even more wonderful!
O, to be in England
Now that April’s there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England—now!
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