Moi, at the Leipzig Book Fair in 2008

The Leipzig Book Fair which started yesterday is a real feast for authors and readers. Unlike Frankfurt which is THE International Book Fair for rights, Leipzig has a Carnival atmosphere and is designed for readers to hear, see, meet and even touch (well shuffle and push past) authors. It is tangible and real, whereas Frankfurt is haughty and more for agents and publishers and VIP authors and DEALS.

1,900 (mostly German) authors are reading at the Fair and all over Leipzig, as part of the “Leipzig liest” – Leipzig Reading -festival. The organisers are expecting 120,000 visitors and there are exhibitors from 38 countries.

I displayed my book From Rock to Kraut there (that's me and my book), last year just as it came onto the market. Well, display is a great word, it was sort of hidden behind a bookcase at Books on Demand’s (BoD) stand and they probably did not think that I would travel across Germany just to check it out . But if you pushed a few people out of the way and put your head around the bookcase, there it was: in all its glory! I felt like a proud new mother - and writing a book is an extremely difficult birth.

Leipzig has something of a first-kiss-feel for me, as it was my first ever Book Fair. As I was leaving from Berlin in the morning , a short hour by train, my friend who has been to a few Book Fairs suggested I take some flat shoes. Deep down, I am still a Johannesburg girl: I had my killer high-heel boots on. So I swopped them for a pair of flat sensible boots. A tip that absolutely saved my day, as I trekked from hall to hall. Looking back, I was so ill-prepared for the five enormous halls.

When I much later wide-eyed and highly impressed related my experiences to my German friends, it seemed as if every German has been to a Fair. And yes, Fairs in Germany are just huge affairs. How could I help that the only Fair I had been to previously, had been as a young child: the Rand Easter Show in Johannesburg in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Compared to Leipzig it was like a miniature Fair.

This Carnival atmosphere in Leipzig started on the train carrying me from Berlin to Leipzig, where I only found standing room and everyone was studying their brochures and mapping out their Fair routes – absolutely the only way to handle these Fairs. Then it continued at the station which was primed for the Fair and everyone seemed to be heading there - laughing and chatting. Arriving at the Fair, people were rushing past the fountains and flags outside and into airy, light-drenched glass halls, housing thousands of books. And then one gets the shocking perspective – with 800 books produced a day in Germany alone, my book was just one of thousands!

Compared to Frankfurt, I found the attitude of the exhibitors and publishers so different. People had time for an informal chat and were quite approachable and helpful to bumbling first-time authors like myself. Compared to Frankfurt six months later this was an easy entry. In Frankfurt everyone seemed to be running around, power-dressed and frantically making deals while hurrying to meetings simultaneously barking instructions on their mobile phones. No-one gave a thought to new authors, unless you have sold a 100,000 copies!

This year the second edition of my book - for the German speaking countries – and now called “Basteln, Wandern AND Putzen: From South Africa to Trier - Living among the Krauts”, will be on display with veteran German publisher Vito von Eichborn’s Edition BoD. This time there will be five copies on display and hopefully it will be presented much more prominently, along with the other Edition BoD Books.

Prost Leipzig!