One of my favorite parts of our book fairs is to see what books will be at the fairs each season. I love opening up the welcome box to pull out the flyer to find the new books, new authors and illustrators, new series, and new publishers. I love seeing them online as I look through Open Book. And when the fair rolls into our library, I can't wait to open the cases and see all of the amazing books that are part of our Literati Book Fair. It's just the best and there are always books for every reader.
This week, I had an exciting conversation with Aubrey Poole, Literati’s curation manager and editorial director. She might just have one of the coolest jobs around and wait till you read what we talked about. It was so much fun.
It is so wonderful to connect with you today, Aubrey. To kick off our conversation, I’d love to know what you did before and how this led to your current role at Literati.
Of course! My journey actually started back in 2009 at Sourcebooks, where I entered the industry as an editorial assistant. It was a fascinating time to break into the business. Sourcebooks was growing rapidly, and it was during my six-year tenure there that they launched both their children’s imprint in 2007 and their YA imprint 2009. Being present for the foundational stages of those imprints really shaped my understanding of how a commercial list is built from the ground up.
After my time at Sourcebooks, I transitioned over to Hachette, where I spent a few years working specifically on the Jimmy Patterson team. That role centered heavily on acquiring and developing high-profile commercial projects across picture books, middle-grade, and young adult literature. Right before the pandemic hit, I transitioned into freelance editing and online instruction.
Then, in June of 2020, I came to Literati. It was a classic "right place, right time" scenario. I absolutely loved working with books and authors, but navigating a massive corporate publishing environment wasn't always my favorite space to operate within. When Literati approached me with a hybrid concept—a startup based in Austin that combined cutting-edge technology with children's literature curation—it felt like the perfect bridge between my editorial experience and a more agile, innovative business model. This past June actually marked my six-year anniversary with the company!
Six years is an incredible milestone. Tell us about your role at Literati.
Earlier this year, I was promoted to Head of Merchandising. Generally speaking, if a product or process touches a book within our ecosystem, it falls under my purview. My editorial background allows me to serve as the resident publishing expert. I oversee all curation across our three primary pillars: our monthly subscription book clubs, our physical school book fairs, and our online e-commerce store. Beyond setting the literary direction, a massive portion of my job involves translating publishing realities into actionable logic for our product and engineering teams.
Let's jump right in and talk about the excitement around book fairs.
A school book fair is a highly chaotic, fast-paced retail marketplace. The students are roaming the floor by themselves, or maybe with their peers. Maybe a librarian will pop in and try to steer them. But they’re usually like, Hey what’s catching my attention on these shelves? And they’re grabbing it. It’s maybe something they recognize like a brand or character or title, or it may just be because the cover looks really cool. Some of the kids open the book and skim through, and some might even read a few paragraphs, but that is a small percentage. The reality is that most kids are very much instant decision makers. They look at a cover, react to the artwork, and decide right then and there.
Knowing that kids are making those rapid-fire visual decisions, how do you structure the fair inventory to satisfy everyone’s interest?
We have to keep in mind that the students are obviously the number one customer who's purchasing the book, but we also have parents and grandparents and others coming in for family night, teacher events, etc. Librarians and book fair coordinators are there so we want to make sure they love the selection too. We have several different customers we're trying to please. So we definitely want to have a variety and books that are very kid appealing. We also want to have some additional categories that are teacher, librarian and family pleasers too.
We always want to strike that balance. We want to be able to have enough series and brands and exciting titles on the fair that kids like, and that feel familiar. Then they have somewhere to start if they're not sure. But we also don’t want the book fair to be made up of every book they’ve already seen, because that would be no fun either. So we want to make sure we're bringing in undiscovered books, hidden gems. We work with a variety of publishers. We use Big Five as they publish the vast majority of books. We also work with small indies and publishers from around the globe who publish outstanding books for our readers.
To satisfy everyone, our seasonal inventories must achieve a very precise balance. For any given season, our team evaluates close to 3,000 distinct titles. Through a rigorous curation process, we whittle that massive pool down to a longlist of 600 to 700 titles, eventually buying a final seasonal assortment of roughly 350 books.
How do you pick upcoming titles and spot the hot trends in books?
A big chunk of this work is just going through catalogs from publishers. I also meet with publishers, representatives who will talk about those catalogs and especially books they think we're interested in. Or if we're like, hey, we're looking for this, they'll pull up some backlist titles. So we definitely work closely with sales reps as well.
My absolute favorite industry event of the year is the Bologna Children's Book Festival in Italy. Unlike other standard trade shows, Bologna is entirely centered on children's publishing. You spend days running between back-to-back meetings with publishers from every corner of the world, tracking exactly what concepts are gaining traction.
In children’s literature, there is always a cyclical pattern around what I call the "hot new animal." For a long time, axolotls completely dominated the market. Then capybaras had a massive wave of popularity. Based on what we saw at the international fairs recently, we are anticipating that highland cows and sea otters are going to be the next major visual trends hitting children's books.
How early do you have to begin planning the upcoming fairs and book lists?
Beyond animal trends, are there specific formats or content styles that are outperforming others at book fairs currently?
Humorous graphic novels are consistently dominant. Kids are dealing with a lot of academic and social pressures, and when they come to a book fair, they want books that genuinely make them laugh. We're also seeing fantastic results from epistolary-style middle-grade fiction. Author Lisa Greenwald has a fantastic new series called Friend Group that utilizes text messages, group chats, and digital communication styles to drive the narrative. It mirrors exactly how modern kids communicate in real life, which makes it instantly relatable to them.
Additionally, non-fiction paired with a tangible, interactive element—what we call "Book Plus" products—is incredibly successful. For instance, a book on geology that comes packaged with genuine rock and mineral samples will completely outsell a standard non-fiction book on the same topic. It acts as a bridge; the novelty element draws the student in, and the educational content keeps them engaged.
Are there new categories coming to Literati Book Fairs?
We are going to holiday titles and an AR reader table display this year. And we are going to have a family table display! These books will be great for family night and we will also feature books that parents could purchase for a special occasion or gift for their child.
I know that choice and transparency are major topics among school librarians and educators today. How is Literati using technology to make the book fair experience easier and more collaborative for school staff?
This is an area where we are actively iterating and improving our systems. We fully recognize that every school community has its own unique culture, values, and parental expectations. My philosophy is that our job is to provide a vast, diverse, and exceptionally high-quality master inventory list, and then build the digital tools that empower individual librarians to manage their local fair effectively.
Currently, we provide schools with a digital list of the titles scheduled to ship to their fair. For our upcoming seasons, we are upgrading our data output to include BISAC metadata categories. This means a librarian can look at their upcoming delivery list and easily see exactly how many fantasy books, graphic novels, or historical non-fiction titles are arriving.
Our long-term engineering roadmap includes integrating professional trade reviews directly into these previews so that librarians can instantly see verification from trusted industry bodies. We want to hand educators the ultimate tool of data transparency, allowing them to feel confident, informed, and completely in control of the marketplace they are introducing to their students.
That sounds like a massive step forward for school partnerships.
To wrap things up, what is one hidden gem or unique project you're personally thrilled to bring to schools in upcoming fairs?
I am incredibly excited about our new proprietary line of creative journals. Following the success of our gamified journal designs, our internal creative and copywriting teams have developed an entirely original, interactive journal that draws playful inspiration from classic retro virtual pets like the Tamagotchi. It frames creative writing prompts around the concept of raising a magical creature at a mythical school. It's imaginative, tactile, and completely unique to our fairs. Bringing that level of curated, thoughtful joy to a new generation of readers is exactly why we do this work.
I have loved our conversation, Aubrey. You help create an experience for all readers that is special, unique, and fun. Thank you for everything you do. I can’t wait to hear what’s next for Literati Book Fairs too.
You can learn all about hosting a Literati Book Fair here, friends.
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