Between the Tombola and the Cake Stall: My Summer Flogging Novels at the Village Fête

There is a particular kind of silence that descends when a man in a flat cap picks up your novel, reads the back cover at length, and says: "Is this the one with the murder?" It is not the murder one. It has never been the murder one. And so begins my education in bookselling, village fête style.

The Pitch

It started when my aunt — a woman who has run the tombola at the same fête since roughly the reign of Edward VII — announced she'd secured me "a little table". A little table. Next to the coconut shy. Between that and the cake stall, which turned out to be the single busiest patch of grass in the entire county.

I arrived with forty paperbacks, a folding chair, and a hand-written sign reading LOCAL AUTHOR. Within ten minutes a child had used my chair as a climbing frame and a woman asked if I did refunds because she "only came for the dahlias".

The Economics of the Trestle Table

Let's be honest about the numbers. I sold seven books in four hours. Two of those went to my aunt. One went to the vicar, who I suspect felt obligated. That's a royalty haul of roughly enough to buy the petrol home and a bag of chips, if the chips are modest.

And yet — and I say this as someone who has queued at book fairs where nobody made eye contact — those seven sales meant more than most of my online numbers. Because every single one came with a conversation. A retired teacher who taught half the village to read. A teenager who wanted to know if writing was "a real job" (brutal, but fair). A man who bought the book purely because, as he put it, "anyone who'll sit out here in this wind deserves a fiver".

What the Fête Teaches You

The fête is a democracy. Your novel sits at the same price point as a second-hand jigsaw and a jar of someone's chutney. Nobody is there for literature. They are there for the bouncy castle, the brass band, and the eternal hope of winning a bottle of sherry on the raffle. Selling a book into that environment strips away every pretension you've built up.

You learn to pitch in one sentence. You learn that "it's about grief, but funny" sells better than any blurb I've written. You learn that the coconut shy gets more footfall than any author table in Britain, and you make peace with it.

Would I Do It Again?

I already have. I've done three fêtes now. I have a system: bring change, bring sun cream, position the sign facing the queue for the cakes. Last month a woman came back specifically to say she'd read my book and wanted the next one. She'd told her book club. Six potential readers, one fête.

That's the thing about the trestle table. It's the least glamorous venue in British bookselling and possibly the most honest. No algorithms, no rankings, no reviews. Just you, the wind, the tombola, and the slow, patient work of finding your readers one conversation at a time.

The murder one, incidentally, is next year's. My aunt has promised me a better spot. Next to the cake stall.