My trip to Germany - Part 3

It was only a short walk to the tram station and... the tram was full of Manga-Comic-Con enthusiasts in cos play dress. An incredibly fun part of the Leipzig Book Fair.

The fairgrounds are huge and security was strict, but I found my German author group , I’d been planning the event with at our stand in Hall 5.

I hit it off with two of the authors straight away. Nika Bechtel and Elke Aybar are very professional and friendly people and write stunning stories. Check out their books on Amazon, if you get a chance.

Stand duty for 4 days, seeing bloggers, readers and fellow authors, I had become friends with on Facebook at last. My feet were complaining, but we had so much fun!I even managed to visit the PEN Germany stand in another hall (I’m a member of PEN South Africa) and bought a couple of children’s books as presents.

By Saturday the numbers of visitors had swelled to such an extent that even the humungous buildings seemed to burst at their seams.

250 000 visitors was apparently a record attendance and it was absolutely fantastic to be part of this book hype. In comparison, for the book fair in New York, about 10,000 visitors are expected...

The sun was shining, but it was still cold by South African standards and yet lightly-dressed cos play enthusiasts posed for pictures everywhere in every freezing corner of the exhibition grounds. Unfortunately, I was way too busy working at our stand to take photographs, but I'm sure you can google cos play and be amazed.Unreal - especially when you are standing squashed into a tram with these characters.

I handed out little gifts from South Africa to my fellow authors and even met a German author, who had lived in Namibia and South Africa for a while at the last minute.

My little trolley was much lighter, when I left the fairgrounds, after having handed out tons of bags and t-shirts and books and signed bookmarks to bloggers and readers. We had taken so many photographs that my face hurt from smiling, but I was happy. My first book fair in Germany as an author was coming to an end.

What an experience, but to be honest, I could have done without the smell of sauerkraut in Hall 5 ;)