The Tunbridge Wells Literary Festival is coming up. It’s only the third year running for this event, but #twLitFest has some impressive headliners: Michael Ball, Michael Palin and others not called Michael. The programme is organised by genre with sessions at various venues in Tunbridge Wells, from the 9th to the 12th May, 2024. Organisers expect to welcome more than the 5,000 visitors who came last year.

Literary festivals are supposed to be a bookish version of a musical festival, but they are not quite the same. There’s much less mud involved and at a music festival it’s more likely that most people have already shelled out for the work of the performers. A music festival is more like a two way thank you: thanks for buying my records, thanks for making those records. It’s a celebration of an intimate and shared relationship, whereas a literary festival is primarily about promoting books and networking. A literary festival puts authors in front of readers in the hope that they will buy, so the focus is squarely on the authors. But a literary festival should be as much about readers, because readers are the market and they are increasingly oversupplied.

Let’s not forget that everything to do with publishing, music or books, is a business. Whether it’s books, magazines, newspapers or albums, the bottom line is money: money funds production, marketing and distribution. With books the route to the money can be especially slow and meandering; the connecting lines are convoluted and often quite entangled. There are many interests involved and many slow processes from the authors and writing, to agents and editors, proof readers and publishers, designers, production, marketing people and publicists. All these interests should get as involved in literary festivals as they possibly can, because this is where readers rove about and the readers are the ones who part with their cash for the books they want.

Authors take part in a literary festival to get exposure, to entertain and to sell. Exposure helps sales of current titles and smooths the route into the charts for upcoming titles. This is part of what the celeb lit culture is all about. Each showcase is an investment for the next book, reducing risks associated with the author and their work. In this context, a famous children’s author can do a completely irrelevant and random stand-up routine, knowing it will give a boost to sales of an upcoming, as yet unwritten, memoir or gothic novel. 

The literary festival model could be about more than celeb profiles, like taking risks with new writing, like engaging readers more actively. Why not throw in moderated panel discussions about things readers care about: new authors, reviews, book lengths, demographics. Live debates would be a good addition, with big names getting involved rather than just passing through. A celebration of story telling, imagination and points of view from the ordinary to the outrageous, encourages readers to get involved. All of this involves risk.

Risk is fundamental to any business investment but the book business is pretty risk averse, whether it is into new authors or even coming to events like the Tunbridge Wells Literary Festival. The days when publishers took risks are long gone. Most of them sit behind layers of corporate interests far from the places where readers roam. Getting up close and personal with readers at a regional literary festival might make an interesting change for them. And a little more risk from publishers might make for a more interesting book business for everyone else.