As we all know, Trade Fairs are wonderful places for networking and lucrative business deals. But that’s not all. As an extra bonus they offer ample opportunity to experience romance, persecution and paranoia.

The Frankfurt Book Fair took place last week. I went from Tuesday to Saturday. Four full days and very long evenings with colleagues and competitors from around the globe.

I skipped the affair. Instead I opted straight away for persecution and paranoia. And for good reason.

It happened on day two, in a meeting with an American publisher. I arrived at his stand, ready to impress. I showed him the books and told him how well they are doing in the UK. He took one of them, opened it, stopped, looked, looked again and pointed out a typing mistake so obvious that for a split second I was convinced I must have accidently given him the wrong book. I of course never noticed it before but it’s actually hard to miss. I managed to hold myself  together during the meeting and we finished on good terms. But as I walked away I just wanted a hole to open up in the ground. Needless to say for the rest of the day I was convinced that the entire publishing world is judging Peirene on that typo. Each time I showed anybody the books I had to bite my tongue to not point out the mistake myself. Truth to tell, I don’t know if anyone else noticed. But even though, I woke up the next morning in cold sweat with the wrong letter standing large and forbidding in front of my closed eyes. I made a note to myself to improve the Peirene proofreading process and that decision finally got me out of bed.

As I walked to my first meeting, I passed a man with a big basket on his lap. The basket was full of little paper rolls, held together by colourful wool ribbons. A sign announced: A poem for a smile. I smiled at him and received one of the rolls with a poem. I unrolled the scroll. “As you stumble, a sudden reawakening as if you have wings growing.” I felt like turning around and giving the man not only another smile but a kiss too. The tiny poem brought the voice of reason back into my head: No one ever said setting up a business or running one means perfection from the start. When I stumble over the short comings, I must recognize them and improve. And with that newly found conviction the next meetings went swimmingly.

Having said that, there is I am afraid a limit to my ability – and indeed my willingness - to learn from past mistakes. If you are a conscientious follower of my blog you will know about my shoe debacle at Frankfurt last year. I was determined not to repeat history. To my credit, I even took an afternoon off to buy some flat shoes a few days prior to going. But I just couldn’t find a suitable pair, and bought a new handbag instead. So this year had to be high heels again. Luckily I wore the most comfortable rather than the most elegant. Yes, my feet hurt and I’ve got a couple of blisters too, but I didn’t cry. I bore my pain as a proud tall woman.

High hopes. That’s what I had for the Frankfurt book fair last week. Yep, those ones over there. But, my God, how low did I sink, stripped of all my dignity at the end.

Day One I managed well, twelve half-hour meetings and two parties at night. The next day I was fading. Another twelve meetings, one reception and one party later, I stood at the side of a road, ready to burst into tears because my feet were so painful and there was no taxi in sight. The following day I woke up with a desperate urge for some down-to-earth pragmatism. With five minutes to spare I rushed into the next best shoe shop and grabbed the plainest boots with the lowest heel I could find in my size. They did the trick – I admit. As I walked pain-free to my next meeting, I could hear my mother’s voice in my head: I told you, didn’t I, you’d break your neck with these mickey mouse shoes. Ha, she was wrong – I didn’t break my neck, did I, merely had a little cry because of swollen feet. That’s all.

So obviously I was terribly busy with shoe issues. Did I achieve anything else? Well, I sold all the Peirene books to Canada, made headway with American and Australian publishing houses who might buy one or the other title, I pitched for three new Peirene books. But the best was the networking. I just love the Frankfurt book fair. The amount of people one can meet there is just phenomenal– old faces, new faces, unexpected faces and afterwards all the contact via email and phone becomes so much easier. Face-to-face communication is still the top runner.

I also had some deep philosophical thoughts about numbers and that we humans are so impressed by numbers and want to impress with numbers. The first day, when asked how many books I intend to publish a year, I’d say six. A straight forward lie. I intend to publish four. Because with four I know I can give them their due – after all I am a one-woman-show and publishing books is just one part of what I do, in fact the easy part. It’s the marketing and publicity that takes the time. And I truly want to give each of my little babies their fair share. Somehow that sounds far less impressive than throwing around big figures.  I got better at sticking proudly to the truth the lower my heels went. But I vehemently would like to reject the idea that there might be a link between numbers and heels. In fact my mission until the next Frankfurt book fair is to find the ultimate heel  - high but marathon proof. I am open for suggestions.