Comments on: Bigger Book Bashes

By: Scott

Scott — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:47:31 +0000

And thus you should, Daren. Read on!

By: DarenW

DarenW — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:25:33 +0000

The DBF is a 501(c)3, with a great, active board, lots of community support, and a growing list of sponsors. We sell the AJC the rights to the title, thus it’s called the AJC Decatur Book Festival. I’ll sell naming rights to anything I can at the festival–we have even discussed finding sponsors for the port-o-lets(and if you are interested in those rights you can email me at Daren@decaturbookfestival.com). Those sales are our main source of funding, and without them we would have the smallest independent book festival in the country.
The practical difference is that when the LA Times wants to sell a sponsorship, they have someone from their large sales staff break out the rolodex. They can also make deals which include ad packages, etc., etc.
It is much the same in programming. When the LA Times calls Random House, Random House is quite responsive. Whatever reputation we have, we’ve had to build on our own.
It also means that we have no safety net. There’s no corporation to cover us if we come up short.
All that may not mean to much to the folks that attend and enjoy the festival. In fact, I hope it doesn’t. But for the staff and the board, that difference is huge. So we wear that badge proudly.

By: Marla

Marla — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:12:00 +0000

I just want to know what a cantaloupe dump entails. (That little article that appears in your blog feed…)

By: KC

KC — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:40:28 +0000

Even though AJC is the title sponsor, I can understand how they can be confused as the owner/operator. It’s parallel to the “LA Times Festival of Books.” It’s hard to distinguish between sponor and owner — could be the same, but in the case of DBF, it’s not. I just went on LA Times Festival website, and all the contacts they listed have the latimes.com domain, which shows that they’re operated by the LA Times. DBF is not operated by the AJC.

By: Jenny

Jenny — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:06:18 +0000

The AJC is the title sponsor of the event, not the owner.