While final audience numbers will not be available for at least a week, Sydney Writers' Festival artistic director Wendy Were told WBN she was ‘thrilled with the success of this year's festival,' which ran from 19 to 25 May.

Many events were sold out or, in the case of the free events, were full to capacity,' said Were. ‘Events that proved particularly popular included sessions with Helen Garner, Don Watson, Jeanette Winterson, Junot Diaz, John Gray, Hermione Lee, Jon Lee Anderson and Michael Pollan.'

The festival area around Walsh Bay was certainly buzzing, with long queues for food, coffee, and of course the sessions themselves. While the weekend is traditionally the busiest part of the week-long festival, weekday sessions were well-attended this year, with industry-focussed events such as ‘Do I Need an Agent' and ‘From Pen to Reader' being broadcast over speakers to crowds unable to fit into the venue.

While the planned ‘LongPen' events with video link-ups to overseas authors did not go ahead--after LongPen advised festival organisers on the morning after the program release that, due to a scheduling conflict, they were unable to provide enough equipment to meet commitments--Were said that in general positive feedback to the festival was ‘flooding in from all sides.'

‘The use of Pier 2/3 was a successful extension of the festival precinct and the writers and festival audiences were extremely happy,' she said.

In the bookshop(s)

From a bookselling point of view the expanded 2008 festival was ‘a real challenge', according to David Gaunt, co-owner of Gleebooks which is the official festival bookseller.

With a presence at numerous festival venues, including events as far afield as Wollongong, Katoomba and Parramatta, Gleebooks had ‘a very big geographical footprint,' Gaunt told WBN. This meant calling on all bookshop staff for the week-long event. ‘Absolutely everybody who works for us gets not only to work, but to work a lot!' said Gaunt.

However, the increased presence and man hours were rewarded with increased sales for 2008. The top five bestselling titles at the festival, according to Gaunt, were:

1. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Juno Diaz, Faber)

2. The Household Guide to Dying (Deborah Adelaide, Picador)

3. The Stone Gods (Jeanette Winterson, Hamish Hamilton)

4. In Defence of Food (Michael Pollan, Allen Lane)

5. The Lost Dog (Michelle de Kretser, A&U).

The success of Pollan's title was something of a surprise for the bookseller. ‘You know, if someone gets enough interest and a good vibe from their events that means [a title] may well work,' said Gaunt. Sales of The Lost Dog were ‘a tribute to the Premier's awards,' he added, referring to Michelle de Kretser's win at the awards.

A little controversy

This year's festival made it onto the ABC's 7.30 Report on Friday night after students at the University of Technology (UTS) claimed their daily festival newspaper Festival News had been censored by festival organisers.

Journalism student Matthew Knott told reporter John Stewart that volunteers handing out the newsletter on Thursday morning had been told to stop. ‘We've been told by the festival that they didn't like us criticising their sponsors and the only sponsor we can think of is the NSW Government,' he said. 'But, I don't see why we shouldn't be able to criticise the Government.'

The offending passage, according to Knott, was one which claimed Premier Morris Iemma's absence from the NSW Premier's Awards ‘created an icy mood' and said ‘things went sub-zero when his replacement was announced, Minister for Planning and the Arts, Frank Sartor.'

The festival's artistic director Wendy Were said the newspaper did not reflect the views of the festival. ‘Had this publication been presented under a UTS masthead, that would be absolutely fine,' she said. ‘But the problem is that it's actually using our brand to present these views and they certainly aren't the views of the festival.'

Industry events draw the crowds

From Pen to Reader, which was chaired by Jim Alexander CEO of the Copyright Agency Limited, and featured Nikki Christer (Random House), Jane Palfreyman (A&U), Will Atkinson (Faber UK) and publisher and author David Davider, was one of several industry-focussed events that drew strong crowds at this year's SWF.

Talking to an audience made up in large part by aspiring authors, the panel of publishers outlined what they were looking for in a manuscript. Christer emphasised that ‘most successful books do not follow trends but lead' and warned against writing to the vagaries of fashion. Davider said that ‘all forms of fiction have been worked out--you're not going to reinvent the form' and said that what was new was ‘the story'. Palfreyman described publishing as ‘a very optimistic business--a gambling business but an optimistic business.' She painted a picture of independent publishing in Australia by pointing to 2008 statistics for A&U: in 2008 the house will publish 260 new titles, of which 40 are novels. Twenty-five of these will be literary fiction and six debut novels. Palfreyman urged would-be authors to be patient in submitting their manuscripts but said unsolicited manuscripts at A&U would be read eventually.

Will Atkinson, sales and marketing director for Faber UK, presented the sobering statistic than in 55 years Faber has only ever published two manuscripts from the slush pile. With such information there's little wonder the subsequent session ‘Do I Need an Agent' was also extremely well attended. What was slightly surprising to some, however, was the cordiality of relations between publishers Louise Thurtell (A&U), Fiona Henderson (HarperCollins), and Ben Ball (Penguin), and the lone agent on the panel Pippa Masson (Curtis Brown).

The other industry-focussed event to draw a strong crowd was ‘The Future of Reading' in which Elizabeth Weiss (A&U), Jim Demetriou (HarperCollins), and Will Atkinson (Faber UK) discussed e-books, e-readers, fiction for mobile phones and Print on Demand with chair Ross McCaul of CAL, which sponsored the session.

The festival also saw the usual round of book launches, parties and announcements, such as the APA Book Design Awards and SMH young Australian novelists awards

This article from Australian Bookseller & Publisher magazine is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2008, Thorpe-Bowker

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