At least, that’s what the Booksellers Association seem to have decided when they suddenly announced that the annual BA conference which was scheduled to take place in Gateshead in May of this year would now be moving to Cambridge in early June.  We were quite looking forward to it, along with quite a few other booksellers we know who were delighted that the BA had realised that those of us north of Watford Gap pay our subs too and would love to see that we were getting something for it apart from the ability to sell and accept book tokens.* 

It even went a way to making up for the fact that almost all of their training days etc are held in London (although I think I saw one advertised in Birmingham once). And there is the Scottish Independent Booksellers Forum day in a week or so but I’m speaking at that and so it doesn’t really count as me getting my money’s worth!

The Bookseller says that “fears among publishers and retailers that 2009’s conference would be poorly attended following what they saw as a lack of relevance in last year’s seminar programme and poor retailer visibility”.  I do fail to see what changing the venue will do to improve a duff seminar programme.  And I’m not sure what ‘retailer visibility’ is.

I’m more inclined to think that the thought of having to brave the Frozen North (3 hours from London on the East Coast Main Line) is too much for the precious souls in London to travel and so somewhat abruptly the whole shebang has been relocated to Cambridge in June. Cambridge seems a rather random choice, although I assume that it was as far north at the poor luvvies in the South East could bear to trek.

Or was it the publishers who come to sell us their wares that were complaining? Because they have no grounds to complain – we beyond-the-M25 booksellers also buy from them, also contribute to their bottom line and do our bit to keep them in work, and we get more or less ignored when it comes to author events and jollies such as launch parties.

The only time we see anyone apart from the poor, beleagured reps, and the occasional publicity person despatched to hold an author’s hand assuming one is plucky enough to brave the dragons, is during the Edinburgh International Book Festival when the city is deluged with publishers who take us all out for dinner (for which thank you) and are frequently amazed that we don’t just live on neeps and tatties up here.  They wonder to us that they don’t know how we manage up here. It’s better now that Harvey Nicks has opened as the mothership obviously emanates reassuring vibes to them.

Either way, it does rather give the impression that our trade association couldn’t organise the proverbial in a brewery.

* Frankly, this isn’t as profitable as you might think and talking to our customers we should probably just sell our own tokens and not bother with the others given the hassle of them.

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