The Melbourne Report
Hello everyone,
As I shared, last weekend I was present at a book fair here in Melbourne - thanks to everyone that came.
For some context, this is a good and solid local fair that has really nice promotion and attendance. I was able to show all the books we had available, but was unable to bring anything new to the fair - our last new book was published in July. Given Melbourne’s home, therefore, a lot of people who stopped by had seen or purchased our books before.
That to say, sales were fairly average - not outstanding, not terrible - completely normal. The fair ran for 12 hours and we sold 12 things - so that metric I use of 1 sale per hour held true. I think had we something new we could have potentially gotten to 2-3 items per hour, but I wasn’t able to get that most recent book done in time.
Still, for a weekend’s work it was well worth it. I sold some books, made some new friends, saw some old ones and generally had a good time. Several artists I’ve published came to spend time at the fair, folks I hadn’t seen in a while and it was good preparation for our upcoming fairs. All positives.
Outside of that fair, I’ve also been busy with three things. Firstly, I had a hands on meeting with a book designer about the dingo work I’ve been making and it was very productive. I felt reassured that there’s something great there, and also left the meeting accepting it will take perhaps a bit more time than I’d like to bring that out of the work. The photos, articles, archival information, scanned documents, etc I’ve collected span centuries, range from a study of a fence to a close look at a specific form of violence, wrangling things together and editing it down will be tricky, but we’ve started :)
Additionally, I continued the rebranding work I’ve been doing for Tall Poppy. This I’m keen to keep under wraps a bit, but it occupied a bunch of time and was very productive :)
Finally, I am conducting some print tests of our first 2025 book next week in Singapore and had to do a bit of preparation for that, hanging out in InDesign and working on files, communicating with printers and the artist.
Tomorrow is my last full day in Melbourne before I head off. I’m teaching a half day workshop at a local University, running some errands and in general trying to get some exercise in and eating something nice before the flight.
I look forward to sharing a lot about the Singapore book fair in next week’s edition. I’m hoping that, over the three days, I can sell 25-30 books - maybe more :)
I’m also umming and ahhing about renting a studio. I was hoping to convert my garage into a teaching and book making space over summer. However, part of me relishes the privacy I have and I don’t know if it’s that fun having folks over 5-10 weekends a year, especially given this is also my girlfriend’s home. I’ll keep thinking about it, but if any Melbournites want to split a studio with me and get access to a ton of printing, book making, etc, supplies let me know. I’d rather share with a friend than someone I’ve not met.
Anyway - lots of love, Matt.