On Thursday, February 8th, I made the gratuitous claim that I should go to The International Toy Fair in New York City because we needed insight into the fair as a venue for a Combined Book Exhibit. To my surprise, my boss agreed.

Fast forward to the following Tuesday, and there I was on the floor of the Jacob K. Javits Center, being bombarded by games, toys and—to my pleasure—books. There were publishers scattered throughout the hall, and two complete rows entirely dedicated to them. What I discovered in talking to such companies as Houghton Mifflin, Usborne, and HarperCollins was that Toy Fair is in fact a great venue for books of all kinds. Scholastic’s booth (rivaling in size their booth at ALA Midwinter) was never without a visitor. Newcomers such as Come Learn With Me, Smart Neurons and Professor Woodpecker found Toy Fair to be a great venue to debut their educational materials that included books, software and video.

Chronicle Books described their booth as “hoppin’” though they admitted that most of their attention was drawn from their novelty and tie-in items, and not necessarily their books. At the Harcourt booth, I was informed that “even though the past few years saw less traffic, this year was really steady for traffic and orders." Holtzbrinck was not shy about admitting that the fair isn’t a big money maker for them: “We just about break even” the Holtzbrinck representative told me. “We don’t write so many orders, but we get a lot of exposure.”

It seems as though Toy Fair is a great venue for books. The size of the show, and the traffic that it draws offer great opportunities for exposure. With that in mind, it seems as though The International Toy Fair would be a great venue for a Combined Book Exhibit.

What do you think? If you had the opportunity to participate in a Combined Book Exhibit at Toy Fair, would you participate? Let us know! Send an email to seth@combinedbook.com.

You can read my diary from my day at Toy Fair on Comblogged Book Exhibit.