Holy Cow!

If you were up late on Friday in the hope of bagging one of the first batch of exhibitor passes for the Summer Oxford Indie Book Fair then there's a good chance that you came away empty handed.
At the stroke of 11:59 my laptop began pinging as booking after booking came flooding in (I get two emails for each one). By ten minutes after midnight it was all over and my laptop lay there smoking gently.

In the midnight hour...

I'd set the opening time late, for a reason. Why 11:59? Well, some might interpret "Midnight on Friday" in two ways, so this avoided the ambiguity... and yes, a hyped-up hoard of caffeine crazed writers DID "cry more, more, more!"
I was hoping that things might be a little quiet that late. I'd just uploaded some freshly baked booking software from the development server to the live one, I'd tested it every which way and was as sure as I could be that it would work, but there's always SOMETHING isn't there?
So, maybe I'd get a handful of bookings and I'd be able to quickly fix any problems that might rise to the surface before most people would notice. Thank goodness it all worked flawlessly!
Earlier, I'd pre-booked the organisers and a handful of VIPs, so to make up the numbers to HALF the hall, there were only twenty to give out to the raving masses.

You're all amazing!

I've got to say, I was hugely impressed with how KEEN everyone was to be involved with the book fair. A HUGE thanks from me and the rest of the team for your enthusiasm and support as always!

Thanks also to those that have given feedback on the booking experience - I was able to make a quick change on Saturday morning to stop the orange button appearing when the table size selected is out of stock. That makes it a lot clearer now, rather than waiting to be reminded after the table was added to the basket.

Booking round TWO. Ding Ding!

As advertised, the remainder of the tables will be made available on Friday 28 March.
This time, it'll be at a much more sociable hour of 8pm and there are THRTY tables up for grabs.
If you're not able to get one then no need to write to ask for a cancellation, just check back from time to time and you'll see if any tables are freed up.
But if you're still out of luck then remember that we've got another fair in November - the BIG one, with something like 150 tables!

What's Next?

This newsletter is going out to ALL our subscribers, so if you're signed up just for general news as a visitor then this is where we part ways until there's something exciting to say about the event itself - if you still want to hear exhibitor related news then make sure you're on the "Interested in Exhibiting" list. You can check that by clicking on the "update profile" link right at the bottom of the email. If you need to subscribe to the exhibitors list then simply go to the bottom of the website homepage and fill in the subscription form again with the same email address and name.
If you've booked, then you'll automatically be included in all the future exhibitor news for this event. I'll be writing closer to the day with tips and advice to help make your day a success.

Free Advertising!

If you've just booked your table, then now's the time to fill in your profile so that everyone can see your books, web links, social media and all that good stuff. Everyone needs a bit of extra publicity don't they? You'll appear on the EXHIBITOR DIRECTORY page.
Some have already started doing that; full instructions in the exhibitors area on the website, and I've already received some profile pictures. Thanks for sending those in.

So, until next time take care and if you've lost the link to the booking page, it's in the link below... wait for it, wait for it! :)

Andy... aided and abbetted by Sylvia, James, Shona, Ray and Felicity.