Pre-London Book Fair

Posted on April 21, 2010 in Uncategorized

Essential for anyone thinking about attending the LBF, this event will demystify the London Book Fair and explain what it’s all about: what there is to do and see, what publishers get up to, and why it’s a key event for the industry! We will also be exploring this year’s Market Focus, by looking at the South African publishing scene.

The evening’s panellists were: Amy Webster, International Key Accounts Manager, The London Book Fair, Richard Bartlett, Publisher, Aflame books, Mark Searle, Publisher, Elliot and Thompson and UKYPE Finalist 2010 and Helena Doreé, Rights Executive, Little, Brown Book Group.

The first of the evening’s speakers was Amy Webster who provided an excellent introduction on what the London Book Fair is all about. Recalling her first time at LBF, Amy started by explaining how incredibly daunting the experience can be. If you’re going for the first time, the best thing to do is to be prepared!

Already in its 39th year the LBF is a three day event for trade publishers. It acts as a platform enabling those in the publishing industry to showcase their latest releases and more importantly to catch up on the competition! Amy was quick to stress that the fair is a business event, trade only, but for those of you who are attending you won’t be disappointed with who you find there. Everyone from distributors, librarians, wholesalers, digital sellers and this year the SYP will be holding down a stand.

With literary translation being one of the major topics for this year’s book fair, the LBF truly is a host for an international publishing market. This year it is estimated that the event will play host to 57 different countries, all eager to showcase their upcoming releases. Now a regular at the fair, Amy explained why it is so important for publishers to exhibit their work. One reason is that it provides them with an opportunity to sell the rights to their books, to market it those who are interested. The LBF provides an arena for professional development, a chance to talk to your competitors and business partners face to face. With 22,000 publishing professionals on the scene last year you’re sure not to be disappointed! So how do you prepare for such an event? Amy’s top tips where to spend time beforehand on the LBF website-find out what you want to see. Bring a bottle of water and a packed lunch; it’s going to be a tiring day. Your CV/ business card in case you need meet anyone and of course your-confidence and be ready to network!

Helena Doreé was our second speaker and gave us an insight into the business side of the fair. Having been booked up since Christmas Helena explained that the LBF isn’t an event to be taken lightly. Helena’s schedule is jam-packed, her day broken into 30 minute business meetings in which she has to sell and talk about the rights to her latest publications. Stressing that her day couldn’t be organised unless she had her Rights Guide with her, Helena’s aim is to be as efficient and productive in her meetings as possible. Likening the situation to speed-dating, this the chance when you get to build up a rapport with your business partners enticing them with the latest blurbs to your books and making sure publishing programmes are updates and on time. Contrary to popular disbelief there is no money changing or business deals signed at the event- this all happens back at the office, when you’ve had a chance to go through the events success.

Each year there is a specific literary market focus, and this year’s emerging market is South Africa. The South African Cultural programme hopes to strengthen cultural publishing relationships, aiming to educate and promote South African literature outside of its home ground. Our third speaker, Richard Bartlett is the founder of Aflame Books, an independent publisher that has translated and published a number of texts from around the world. Calling upon his passion for South African literature, Richard talked about the number of cultural barriers that stand in the way when it comes to getting more books in South Africa and equally as important, promoting South African and other native books in the UK and abroad. Translations only account for 3% of books in the UK and with English being such a powerful language it seems a shame the numbers don’t match up to the intensity of this language. There are a variety of books that are part of the South African educational system, their stories rich in culture and moral values, however, at a cause of low funding and nay other obstacle, such texts remain hidden away from the rest of the world. With strong narratives of faith and identity by authors that have won the Man Booker Prize, Aflame Publishers is a small but powerful publisher perusing powerful ideas in order to gain success.

Following on from this year’s market focus, our final speaker has a wealth of publishing experience which has enabled him branch out into such niche markets. Mark Searle, Publisher at Elliot and Thompson books was this year nominated for the UK Young Publishing Entrepreneur (UKYPE) of the year. UKYPE helps to promote emerging publishing markets, by breaking down any barriers and strengthening relationships between the two nominated countries. This year’s project took the shortlisted candidates over to South Africa for a series of meetings with South African Publishers. Looking back over his trip Mark stressed how important it is to promote readership in the country. With a population of 44 million, only 800, 000 of the population are reading customer. UKYPE helps to burst this bubble, to set up schemes running to get more people buying books. One way of achieving this goal is by translating texts into native languages. Whether this is in Zulu, Dutch or Spanish broadening the scope of the reading public is the common aim. With the LBF having a major stress on this emerging market hopefully our bookshelves will soon be stacked with a number of different translations.

The London Book Fair is on at Earl Court from Monday 19th April-Wednesday 21st April