I suppose I always assumed that doing business was kind of dirty – that it involved duping another person into purchasing a product or crunching numbers to avoid paying corporate taxes. Perhaps there were some sleazy suits at the Expo, but I certainly didn’t meet any. What I encountered was a conglomeration of people with whom I shared a common interest: a desire to make a living from words. From the get-go, there was something to talk about with each person whose path I crossed that would compel us both: books! From librarians to PR reps for the publisher bigwigs, from independent novelists to next year’s bestselling author – they’re all there, and we are all either writers or writer-appreciators.

And because we’re all there to make this common interest our gagne-pain, it felt neither awkward nor pushy to talk business. If anything, the mood was almost celebratory as people scrambled to make the most of the three days when just about everyone who’s involved in North American publishing shares a roof.

There was never a dull moment. Whether our booth was visited by authors looking for publicity options; whether I took a break to pick up some free books; whether I was visiting authors’ booths to suss out potential clients and offer our product if I thought it might be a fit; whether I was finally meeting a Substance Books member face to face who had decided to come along – the buzz is constant. And I loved it.

I truly enjoyed talking up the Substance authors and the website. The only other product I’ve tried to upsell is pasta and wine at a run-of-the-mill Italian restaurant. I hated it, and assumed that sales would never be my thing, but the Book Expo was different: I actually care about the products I was talking about. The enthusiasm showed and Hajni and I were able to come away from the show with a real sense of triumph – for ourselves and for the authors we were representing.

More reports in the next issue.