Rising Star Renae Prince Wins Trailblazer Award
We are delighted that Renae Prince (Fane Online Manager) has been named one of London Book Fair’s Trailblazers for 2024. Following in the footsteps of Lucy Bond (Director, Fane) back in 2023, this award recognises six industry professionals who are demonstrating creativity, dedication and innovation in their roles within the book industry.
As Fane’s Online Manager, Renae is responsible for programming the company’s online-only events, with a particular emphasis on championing and creating a space for emerging talent and underrepresented voices. Post-pandemic, she spearheaded continuing the online programme and has established a new way of working with publishers, consistently ensuring each event involves strategic outreach to the relevant community groups. In doing so, she has changed the game for online author events and has kept them relevant, long past the end of Lockdown.
Gareth Rapley, Director of The London Book Fair, said:
“Even early on in their careers, this year’s winners have already made huge contributions to the book industry. We are confident that they will continue to inspire by bringing their dedication, enthusiasm, and innovation to all they do. Congratulations to the Trailblazer winners – we are looking forward to celebrating your achievements at the Fair, and can’t wait to see what you do next.”
We spoke to Renae about her achievements to date and looked back on her time at Fane so far:
Max: So, how does it feel to have been named a Trailblazer?
Renae: It’s always nice to have people recognise your work. I think everyone at Fane tries very hard to be innovative, and take risks frequently, and I think we have the benefit of seeing that play out positively in most instances. So, to have that acknowledged by the wider industry is always a nice thing to have.
Max: You definitely deserve it. So let’s take it back, what was it that first interested you about working in the publishing industry?
Renae: I’ve always been a book person. I’ve always been interested in how books translate into cultural differences mainly. So I’d say that was one of the biggest things that drew me to work in publishing. I like the way that books impact their audiences, and bringing the best out of that experience is something that’s very interesting to me.
Max: And how did you first discover Fane?
Renae: I had known about some online events that were happening around the time that I was looking for jobs. When I found the job listing for Fane, it felt like a perfect fit.
Max: Were there any particular events that stood out at the time?
Renae: I remember The Receipts Podcast was on sale and there was an online event with Yaa Gyasi, who wrote Homecoming. They were things that I saw and I was like: ‘Oh, I really like the look of this programme and who they have on it.’ So I was like: ‘I wanna be in the room.’
Max: Fast forward and you did indeed join Team Fane. What were you doing when you started at the company?
Renae: My first role was Book Distribution and Production Assistant. I was sending out books to customers, processing any sort of offers or giveaways we were running. And then because we were just online at that point, I was also managing the logistics of booking in the recordings for the online event over Zoom or in a small studio space we used.
Max: Wonderful. And once you started to get to grips with things, was there anything in particular that made you think: ‘We could do that differently’, or ‘We could we change that’?
Renae: Yeah, for sure. When I look at the Fane Online programme from when it started compared to now, I think a big focus was well-known household names, but there didn’t seem to be as much space for authors with smaller audiences. So, I thought it would be interesting to look at how we could support up-and-coming talent, who perhaps don’t have a clear idea of how to grow their audiences yet. Because I was working in distribution, I spent a lot of time looking at customer data. In that time, I noticed that there was a real trend between people who watched a Fane Online event about say, cookery, were watching and buying books for lots of other Fane events across a variety of genres. It felt like there was a core Fane audience who would be willing to engage with any new names that Fane promoted, because it felt like a trusted brand to them. We could turn the Fane Online platform into a home for debut authors.
Max: And since that moment, what other kind of projects have you been working on?
Renae: Quite a lot! One of the biggest things was changing the strategy of the Fane Online programme to make it freely accessible for the most part. We first started talking about that halfway through 2022, and then by the time we went into 2023, we had made the majority of our online platform available for free. That was more about trying to adapt to how the landscape had changed post-pandemic, once people had opportunity to get out of their houses and see live shows, exhibitions, and all these other things that people were going to continue to pay for.
Max: And there have been plenty of successes too. Have you got a personal highlight?
Renae: I think there were a bunch of really great events from 2023. We worked with Andi Oliver, Mikaela Loach, Joe Wilkinson, Michael Caine, and that breadth of talent is really thrilling. At the end of last year, we were also lucky enough to host an exclusive virtual event with Alice Oseman. That was really exciting because I had to pitch why we were the perfect people to pull off what was obviously going to be quite a big event. To have that successfully taken on board and then to get to the point where we did sell over 500 books and just under 2000 tickets for it, I think was a real success.
Max: There are six of you that have been selected for this award, all pushing for positive change in their respective areas. Are there any changes you hope to see in the book industry going forward?
Renae: I think there’s always room to do more. One of the things I’m most passionate about is making the industry feel like a community. When you go to a Fane show, or a bookshop event, you’re going to be in the company of like-minded people. Everyone who works behind the scenes on those productions, is also a part of this much larger community. I want to continue working on how we can connect more with publishers on how we can best service them as producers, and vice versa.
Max: That’s great. Thanks to this award, we’ve had the chance to look back at your achievements. Do you have any personal ambitions going forward? What’s next for Renae?
Renae: I think I’m still kind of doing things for the first time. Like my upcoming event with Taylor Jenkins Reid, it’s my first time hosting an event at the Barbican. And so, I’d like to continue doing bigger scale things. I’d like to take more risks. I’d like to do more events in person for fiction authors, because that’s something that Fane hasn’t done a lot. I know that there are risks involved in that, but I think that there also could be something in it. So yeah, I’m very open to always thinking about new ways that I can work and new things that I can do. And hopefully one day maybe like a tour, you know? I’ve only ever done one-off events before, so it might be nice to have like a tour or some kind of online series, something that’s a bit more long-form.
If you’d like to hear more from our Trailblazer, Renae will be appearing in Meet The Panellists: How to Get Into Publishing with the 2024 Trailblazers during London Book Fair on Wednesday 13th March at 9:30am.