_ I just spent a lovely sunny weekend as a volunteer at the Chipping Norton Literary Festival, mainly as their (wo)man on the ground tweeter, and had a great time.

The festival is only in its second year but it already has a huge fan base and had some big names authors, including Lionel Shriver, Fern Britton, Richard Dawkins and Val McDermid. Working with a variety of local partners, the small committee are able to put on a great event and I was glad to be involved as one of the many eager volunteers.

I started work on the Friday which was the day that the festival sent children's authors, including Sarah McIntyre and Susie Day, into some of the local primary schools where they gave really exciting talks featuring, among other things, swords and superheroes. I didn't go out to the schools but was in charge of coordinating everything, making sure the right author went to right school in the right car with the right volunteer. So that took some doing but, except for one missing author scare, everything worked out alright. The best bit about the day for me was getting to settle down in the corner of Jaffe & Neale bookshop with unlimited tea organising and tweeting and looking at the books. If you ever have

So as you already know, I spent two days this week at the London Book Fair. I have already talked about the talks I attended and my experiences as a volunteer (which I have since received much praise for) so this post is just going to be a nice summary of the fair and the messages I took away from it.

First thing's first, digital is everything. The digital section was a hive of activity everyday and the 20 minute digital seminars were packed every time. From HTML5 to new platforms, innovation and new techniques were everywhere. Everyone in the publishing industry, no matter what sector, needs to keep up to date. You don't need to be an expert but if you don't at least keep your toe in the water you are going to get left behind.

No where was this more evident than in the talks about transmedia and gamification. A book can no longer just be a book, just as a game or tv show can no longer just be a game or tv show. Boundaries are blurring and you will find publishers in unexpected places and game developers everywhere else. One of the best pieces of advice I heard was that pretty much everything now

So I turned up for round two at the London Book Fair but this time I was on the other side. Decked in my LBF t-shirt I started my duties as volunteer - by drinking free tea and eating free pastries during the briefing. But once the important stuff was out the way I headed to my designated room to get ready for the day's talks. As there were no talks in my room until half 11 I helped my friend who was in charge of the room next door. This room was the home of talks about children's literature including a few discussions on equality and representation in children's books that got heated. But for more on that go and follow @charlieinabook - a must-follow for anyone interested in YA literature and social media communities.

So finally it was time for the talks in my room to get going. First up was Gamification for Publishers which was a panel talk looking at how publishers can use gamification and transmedia to enhance their products and get access to a wider audience. But it's not only the publishers that can benefit as game developers can use the collaborations to build on their audience too. The key messages I took from this talk were that gamification covers more than you expect and that there is a level of game-like interaction in almost everything now

So this week I am taking the opportunity of free student tickets to visit the London Book Fair. 

We entered Earl's Court this morning and were completely overwhelmed. It was huge and full of stands from all kinds of publishers from all over the world. We decided to try and get to grips with it before the first talks. Instead we just wandered to the digital section and played on the phones and tablets while eating the free biscuits.

So the first talk I attended was on Open Access, obviously, and was called "Academic Publishers: Still Open for Business?". With three speakers, one from Elsevier, one from OUP STM and one from CUP HSS the talk gave a comprehensive overview of OA post Finch Report. Then each publisher highlighted how they were implementing OA before taking questions. The main things this talk highlighted were that people still don't understand CC licenses (something that comes up time after time at these events) and that the key to OA is sustainability. But it wasn't all doom and gloom as the overwhelming feeling of the speakers was that there is still a place for academic publishers and that OA could bring new opportunities, creating healthy competition as titles become easier to launch. 

So for the last nine days Oxford has been (more) full of authors, journalists and avid literature fans for the literary festival. Not one to be left out, I got involved as a volunteer.

As a volunteer I was part of a team responsible for setting up the rooms, checking tickets, running the microphones around during the questions and tidying up at the end. Doesn't sound that exiting but came with the perk of being able to attend the talks you were stewarding for free and occasionally meeting an author (even if you don't recognise them and ask to see their ticket - embarrassing but we've all been there right). This was really good as it gave me a chance to go see talks that I might not have gone to and that I would have missed out on. And of course you get access to some of the beautiful colleges that are closed to the public.

So between the two days I worked I saw: