{"id":27282,"date":"2018-10-05T08:00:21","date_gmt":"2018-10-05T12:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=27282"},"modified":"2018-10-05T08:00:21","modified_gmt":"2018-10-05T12:00:21","slug":"texas-teen-book-festival-turns-10-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=27282","title":{"rendered":"The Texas Teen Book Festival Turns 10, Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>As I write this, we are about 34 hours away from the 10th<\/sup> annual Texas Teen Book Festival<\/a>. Planned in partnership between BookPeople, the Texas Book Festival, and several amazing librarians who do this in their free time, TTBF has grown from an experiment launched in a high school theater to an event that takes over St. Edwards University campus with 35+ authors and 4,000 readers every year.
\nAt this point, the truck has been packed with books, giveaways, banners, props, and all kinds of miscellany. Final emails have been sent out to authors, publishers, and moderators; announcements are getting a final polish; and signage has been printed.
\nFestivals are whirlwinds of energy and activity. Every year is different, so there\u2019s always a new wrinkle to adapt to and learn from. But here are a few things I\u2019ve learned over the last decade in the trenches as TTBF Programming Director.
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\nCOMMUNICATION IS HARD:\u00a0<\/strong>You can\u2019t plan\u00a0a festival without a lot of communication. But as the planning committee got larger and our festival more complex, managing the email threads became impossible. Festival Director Shawn Mauser brought us into the world of Trello (an online project management tool) 3-4 years ago, and it has made a huge difference. We still send plenty of emails, but Trello serves as a holding place for decisions made, tasks assigned, and progress tracked across all\u00a0aspects of the festival.
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Color-coded by panel and ready to go.<\/p><\/div>
\nSPREADSHEETS RULE:\u00a0<\/strong>Often less is more, but when you\u2019re talking about tracking\u00a0docs, I\u2019m\u00a0here to say\u00a0that more is actually more. Yes, I\u2019m blogging about spreadsheets! (Exciting stuff, I know.) But, every year we add\u00a0more tracking grids, and every year our handle on what\u2019s going on gets that much better.\u00a0TTBF has learned\u00a0 from the Texas Book Festival in that respect,\u00a0with all their experience putting on\u00a0an even larger program. The list of shared documents I\u2019ve referenced in the last 6 hours includes:<\/p>\n