I'm in the air somewhere right now, so this report on the virtual Book fair that took place in Second Life last weekend comes from Pan Macmillan's intrepid Press Officer, Emma Giacon:

Here's a snapshot from the event that we held for The Unofficial Tourist Guide to Second Life on Sunday night, at the Second Life Book Fair.  (As blogged previously here)  There is a thriving book community in SL, as we've been discovering, and our event had a good number of people and generated interesting discussion about publishing/the digital world.

The format of the event was much the same as a Real Life one - the authors participated in a Q&A session with Falk Bergman , who has created books in SL for several authors and publishers.  For SL literate readers of this blog, his bookstand can be found here . The discussion was then opened up to the floor, and we had intelligent and polite questions.  We gave away free, in-world copies of the Guide, which residents can read when they are logged in to SL, and also some funny little branded hats, which you should be able to see in the pics.  A branded hat might sound strange, but SLifers love a freebie, particularly one they can wear!  Of course, we knew that the experienced SLifers already in-world were not our target audience for the Guide, but our aim is that they'll go and tell all of their 'newbie' friends how brilliant and useful it is!

This has really been an interesting experience, despite various technical problems to begin with.  I certainly think that we will pursue other in-world opportunities.  Our colleagues at Nature are ahead of the game as they already own two islands, but expect to see a more permanent Pan Macmillan presence at some point soon!

PS, my favourite audience comment came when someone suggested that the SL Book Fair should take the place of Frankfurt...  Not sure what other people think, but it would definitely reduce our carbon footprint!