On Friday I left the cold wet wilds of South Canterbury for Brisbane, heading across the ditch for the Annual BookPeople Conference. The purpose of this ‘live’ feed is to share my experience with you, sharing highlights and hot tips, forsaking any style for benefit of speed and simple iteration of my experience. Above all, I want to show booksellers the value of a bookselling conference, encourage you to come to the BookPeople conference and to our own conference, to invest in your own professional and business development.
Pre-conference opened at the delightful Avid Reader Bookshop (they have a licensed bar in the bookshop!) where we could explore the shop, talk to other conference delegates and talk to local Brisbane authors, booksellers and publishers. I loved hearing about bookshops around the country, from Devonport (Tasmania), to Alice Springs and Darwin, Sydney and South Australia. My hot tip from pre-con? Build dump bins out of plywood so you can say no to the cardboard dump bins and make a highlight of your staff picks! (see pictures below).
The first day of conference had a leisurely start at midday with an invigorating Welcome to Country, and an essential and inspiring speech from Sally Rippen, Australia’s current children’s laureate who spoke about her books, her work and the central driving force of getting kids reading. (Watch this space for a special NZ event with Sally coming soon!)
Robbie Egan spoke… but I shan’t spoil the plot here as we are lucky to have him coming one last time to our own conference where he’ll share his thought leadership on books and bookselling with us.
Nielsen also shared data – a full spread of market data which was incredibly humbling and fascinating to drill down into. Overall the AU market is down in both volume (1.3%) and value (3.1%), and while the percentages are small, it equates to 68.9 million and 1.29 billion respectively. The discount market here also has a big impact on average sale price – average sale price in the discounter market is only $11, while average sale price for the independents is $28.
The first bookseller panel was hosted by Jaye Chin-Dusting who set the tone with an anecdote of John Lennon meeting Yoko Ono and the power of saying yes – but what was also clear was that there is an art to saying no, too. The Panel was about unlocking unexpected revenue and the biggest hot take is around events and ticketing, in particular the psychology of ticketing events, even for a nominal fee. Attrition on a ticketed event is closer to 10%, while attrition on non ticketed events is more like 30%, so it’s clear revenue can be made while also shoring up attendance for events by ticketing.
The next session was a great interview with two upcoming memoirists, Kate Reid (Williams Racing and Lune, i.e. the croissant lady) and Guts by Masterchef judge Melissa Leong. The two authors, entrepreneurs and friends spoke about the process of writing their books and their own lives. Following this was a cocktail event with Sophie Laguna who spoke about her new book The Underworld and we were able to mix andmingle with more booksellers and publishers. Mandy Myles and I were invited to dinner with Simon & Schuster and Kate Reid and spent the night talking about formular one, Rebecca Solnit, books to read and first dates gone awry.
It’s a curious feeling, reflecting on the cornucopia of opportunity and learning that 24 hours can provide. This blog doesn’t do it justice as i’m only just keeping up with all the goodness in real life
Until tomorrow, Renee.
Sunday 15 June, BookPeople conference, Brisbane
The leisurely starts are over and day 2 begins with a high energy panel on Children’s publishing, covering everything from manuscript submission, ilustration partnerships, financial risk and liability, price point pressure across various formats, marketing campaigns and engagement with booksellers and bookshops. This was the first session where I heard Australian publishers say to the Australian indie bookselling delegation “we need you… these books are published for you… independent booksellers make the market” which was so heartening and a theme that would recurr throughout the day.
Titlepage sponsored morning tea and we heard briefly about the upcoming updates to the service – the mobile friendliness plans drawing audible ‘oooohs’ from the room. After morning tea was a session called ‘A Passion for Pages or Skills for Sustainability – Why Not Both? which explored barriers to doing good retail business in bookselling versus wider retail, and was a call to arms to invest people and the retail experience”. The hot tip from this session came from Fiona of Avid Reader who shared advice given to her as a business owner trying to create a positive culture in her business: “We create the climate and we bring the weather” which, imo, is excellent advice for anyone in a leadership position.
Indies supporting Indies was a panel exploring the symbiosis between independent publishing and independent bookselling. When independent publishing is flourishing, so is independent bookselling and vice versa. The aforementioned theme came through loud and clear “an independent bookshop is the true repository for Australian writing and stories”… “Australian indies are the life blood”. The mutual appreciation rang loud and clear, but it wasn’t just a sycophant’s fest, it felt like an honest exploration of challenges, including the trend of mergers and acquisitions by international publishers and what this meant for the wider risk appetite. This was a revelatory session and it’s one we’ll look to programming for our conference in future year.
Lunch followed, and then the excellent trade day, exploring the diverse Australian publishers and getting a first glimpse into the all important summer / Christmas sell in. My focus at trade day has a buying group focus, learning about the books, learning about where promotional spend is planned, building relationships with those publishers not yet in the buying group. Second to that is a promotion of BookHub and our marketing efforts including the recent Kids Reading Guide, encouraging submissions for the Summer Reading Guide and showcasing the digital marketing work we’re doing.
Lunch was followed by an author panel on storytelling and identity from University of Queensland Press before the BookPeople AGM and member forum, and then a quick break to glow up for the Gala Dinner and Awards night. It was a beautiful event in the Brisbane Town Hall, with an enthusiastic keynote from ‘local author’ Trent Dalton. Congratulations to all the winners and finalists on the night. It’s so evident that Australian Bookselling is a positive, generous and creative place.
Day 3 coming soon!
The morning after the Gala is a dusty one but there is no rest for the conference delegation as the programme starts with the heavy hitters and the grunty topics in the Industry Forum: Chaired by new BookPeople President Gavin Williams (Matilda Books), he explored big issues like AI, copyright, the constant existential crisis faced by the book industry including the current reading crisis, prices of books v. operating costs, the customer’s experience. The panellists were Lucy Hayward (Australian Society of Authors (ASA) ), Julie Burland (PRH) and Nick Croydon – QBD Books.
From the deepest industry issues, we then pivoted to the wonderful hypothetical panel, with our very own Jenna Todd (Time Out). The scenario, ‘The Bookshop in December’ and Jenna’s suggestion for the bookshop name ‘Seafreight Books’ with the motto ‘it’s on the boat’ bought hearty guffaws from the NZ delegation. Well said Jenna, well said.
There was a great panel sponsored by Simon & Schuster – Love is a Battlefield featuring publisher Jane Palfreyman in conversation with four insightful storytellers: Madeleine Gray, Erin Hortle, Bri Lee and Kate Mildenhall. Honestly, which book to read first? Anna Burkey hosted an excellent panel on the Australia Reads research which is going to be a highlight of our own conference, and before we knew it, we were dining with Heather Rose and saying our goodbyes.
I boarded the plane home very conscious that i’d just been part of a world class experience and keen to get back to work on our own conference, to bring the same level of quality and inspiration to our delegates and to provide an incredible return on investment for our delegates.
BookPeople conference is always mid June, so you can plan for 2026 now – we’ll be running a scholarship opportunity again for the conference and announce this in January 2026. Also watch this space for our 2025 Scholar’s report from Mandy Myles (Bookety Book Books). Finally, if this has inspired you, you can see our conference programme here and register here.
