Why Exhibit?
Great Location: The Stryker Center and The Williamsburg Community Building
The festival is in the Stryker Center & Community Building at City Square (412 North Boundary Street - next door to the Williamsburg Regional Library and across the street from the Williamsburg Chamber & Tourism Alliance building). Both facilities have a large open exhibit area and plenty of natural light. We have a separate meeting room for workshops and panels throughout the day that add to the festival's offerings.
The Application Process
1. The Application Window & Submission Requirements
Because of the demand to participate in our festival, we jury all new applicants. The jury process strives to ensure a diverse offering of genres and subject matter along with high quality books from emerging and established authors. Books may be of any genre: fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. At this time, we do not accept e-book only authors as exhibitors at our event.
Books should meet professional publication standards to include an ISBN, professionally designed cover, professional formatting to include a title page, copyright page, and page numbers. The manuscript itself should be well edited with minimal grammar errors, typos, etc…. Additionally, books submitted for jury consideration should be published within the past five years. The jury will be looking for the above criteria when evaluating your book.
Returning authors who apply to exhibit with us should also have published a book within the past five years.
Our application window typically runs from June to late September.
Here are the steps to apply:
Authors: Please note the 2022 Application window is closed. Please check back in June 2023 to apply for the 2023 Festival.
Submit An Application To Participate.
First Time Exhibitors must submit a copy of at least one of your books for review by the selection committee. Application deadline September 30,2023.
Mail to: Williamsburg Book Festival, PO Box 114, Williamsburg, VA 23187
All books received with applications will be donated to charity after the jury process or returned to authors if they are accepted for the festival. NO EXCEPTIONS.
Returning authors do not need to submit a book.
Publishers:
Submit A Publisher Application.
If you are a new publisher exhibiting with us, please include a link to your website when requesting the publisher's application and send us a sample book to be juried.
Publishers will be notified of acceptance to exhibit at the festival in a manner similar to the author process.
2. Author & Publisher Invitations
Invitations will be extended to selected authors and publishers in November.
Please remember that if you are not invited to participate this year, the selection is heavily based on providing a wide variety of books. For example: There could be many science fiction, children's books, or historical novels submitted, so that may affect the competition for authors in a particular genre. We will not know until all the applications are in. This is NOT a reflection on the author. It is the result of ensuring we present a multi-genre book festival.
3. Author & Publisher Registration Payments Due December 31
All payments are due no later than December 31, 20232. Please do not purchase a table unless you have been invited to exhibit.
Our registrations fees are as follows:
Author - (one author only) $70 - includes a table rental and chair.
Author - Half Table space Fee $45, this fee is per author and may not be split between authors/co-authors. It is for half a table space and a chair.
Publishers Fee - $125.
Payments may be submitted via PayPal. We will post the payment link after authors and publishers have been notified of their selection to exhibit at the festival.
4. Book Sales
Authors & publishers will be responsible for providing their inventory, selling their books, and paying their sales tax.
Some Smartphone and tablet applications, like PayPal, Intuit, or Square, make taking credit cards easier.
The retail sales tax for Williamsburg is 7%. (For more information on collecting and reporting sales tax: http://www.tax.virginia.gov/site.cfm?alias=SalesUseT) For questions concerning sales tax, please see your accountant. Form ST-50a
Last year's Festival was a great success. The Festival aims to build its audience and reputation for showcasing variety and quality in exhibting authors and books.
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