At the tradeshow

On Tuesday, RiverVision Press packed up its operations and headed over to Central Maine Community College, for the Afox Small Business Fair. This was our first trade show/business fair we’ve done since our inception, back in June, 2005.

I was part of the Afox planning committee, helping to put together this three county conference, one of Governor Baldacci’s Conferences on Small Business and Entrpreneurship. As part of my responsibilities, I was tasked to set up the Resource Fair, where a number of state and federally-sponsored organizations like, SCORE, AVCOG, SBDC and other services, designed to help promote and support the small business community, had tables providing information and assistance to any small business people and prospective entrepreneurs.

My wife and I designed a DIY, low-cost trade show display, promoting RiverVision Press as a resource for prospective writers/authors and advertising some of our consulting services—manuscript critiques, copyediting, as well as other writing-related support that comes from our own experiences with independent publishing.

It was another opportunity to get When Towns Had Teams out into the public, once again and also, an opportunity to talk about our newest book, T.W. Moore’s, I Love Today—Musings from New England. We have developed what will probably be our cover artwork, so it was good to get that design out into the public eye, as well as a print version of Write In Maine, which describes the RiverVision mission and some other information about our company.

The keynote speaker, Michelle Neujahr (New-yar), was great. She was an energetic and motivational speaker and really energized the audience and got them excited, I think, about the possibilities of seeing their own ideas transition from mere thoughts, into serious plans, leading to future success.

I also enjoyed being able to talk to others about what publishing entails and meet a handful of other writers, who inquired about what it takes to publish a book.

While I only sold a handful of books, it was a great opportunity to expose others to RiverVision Press and hold court with fair participants and answer their questions.