I don’t remember exactly how we decided to move to Prague; we were in Bangkok talking to Simon Whistler (Rocking Self-Publishing Podcast) and I’m tired of Taiwan – mostly because, I need to be surrounded with people excited about similar projects and there are extremely few self-publishers here.
And now suddenly it’s 2015, and I have a ton of work to do, and then we have to find someone to take over our apartment, pack up and head out. But it’s good for me to have firm deadlines.
Actually 2015 will be a bit of a mess; I’d planned on attending the London Book Fair, and had loose ambitions of touring southern France and Spain before heading over to Eastern Europe (and also Northern Island, the setting for the novel I’m working on). But I decided to check out whether there were other International Book Fairs in Europe we could hit.
Turns out, there are many.
So I’m planning to be somewhat of a book fair groupie, if such a thing exists, and visit as many as possible, which will give our trip purpose and structure. In case you were wondering, here’s the list:
Taipei book fair, 11-16 February
(We’ll still be here for that one. I plan to finish Poqom, my Chinese language based ebook publishing company before then, but time is running out so fast!)
Brussells, 26 Feb to 2nd March
Salon du livre, Paris, 20-23 March
Bologna children’s book fair, 30 March – 2 April
London book fair, April 14-16
Sarajevo Book Fair, Bosnia April 2015
Budapest International Book Festival, 23 – 26 April
Geneva Book Fair, 29 April – 3rd March,
Thessaloniki Book Fair, Greece, 7 – 10 May
Prague International Book Fair, 14-17 May 2015
Warsaw book fair, 14-17 May
(Too bad Prague and Warsaw are on the same days, probably can’t visit both so will have to choose).
Tbilisi International Book Fair, Georgia, 28 – 31 May 2015
So our schedule will be:
Paris>>London>>Bosnia>>Budapest>>Geneva>>Thessaloniki>>
Prague>>Warsaw>>Georgia
Probably staying in Prague for at least a month or two.
And then we plan to be back in Oregon for the summer, although nothing is set in stone yet.
Later this month I’ll hear more from the Fulbright committee about my application to study in Romania (if you’re reading this, Fulbright committee – pick me!) – and depending on those results, we’ll either return to Europe in the fall or head back to Asia.
Why visit book fairs?
My businesses are more and more publishing related, so this is kind of “my industry” – although I mainly want to meet people. So if you’re planning on going to any of these events, please get in touch.
I’d like to organize some meetups for authors. And if you have an extra room for us to stay for a few days around the event, I’ll make you a free book cover and you can pick my brain about building an author platform.
Travelling is expensive, but I’ve already decided this will be a year for major growth. In 2016 we’ll pick a beautiful, quiet place to live and I’ll focus on writing full-time.
I’m a philosophy dropout with a PhD in Literature. I covet a cabin full of cats, where I can write fantasy novels to pay for my cake addiction. Sometimes I live in castles.
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Really? How’d I miss that one! Awesome, thanks.
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