Five things I learnt at London Book Fair

Posted on March 29, 2019 in UK

At 6:30am on a cold Tuesday morning, I made my very early commute from Oxford into the centre of London. Tuesday 12th March marked the beginning of the London Book Fair 2019. Located in the elegant building of Olympia, West Kensington, the event started at 9am and was already swarming with publishers and book lovers alike. I was one of around twenty volunteers from Oxford Brookes University who were helping to aid in the smooth running of the event. Placed at different points around the venue, we were set to task on scanning ticket holders into speaker events, replenishing water bottles for conferences, and answering any questions thrown at us by the general public. It being my first time at London Book Fair I was unsure on what to expect but I was looking forward to finding out!
Here are five things I learnt about my first experience at this prestigious book fair…

Take a map with you.

Holding a ten thousand capacity and two hectares large, Olympia London is huge. This means that attempting to navigate yourself around all the different stands, levels and conference rooms is a bit tricky without a map…which I soon realised!

Study the events programme.

With over two hundred speaker events held over three days, it’s impossible to watch everything on offer. The sections within the venue include the likes of ‘Author HQ’, ‘Children’s Hub’, ‘Cross-Cultural Hub’ and ‘Poet’s Corner’ to name a few. If you’re an aspiring author there were many valuable talks to be listened to at ‘Author HQ’. The topics varied from giving advice on how to acquire a literary agent to how to make a living as a writer, and many more. I particularly enjoyed an interview with the illustrator David McKee in honour of celebrating the 30th anniversary of his creation ‘Elmer the Elephant’.

Go to a speaker event whose topic you have no knowledge of.

The fair’s market focus this year was on Indonesia – the aim being to encourage more trade relations with their publishing industry. I was lucky enough to be placed in the cross-cultural hub for half a day where I listened in to a fascinating speaker event named ‘The Many Identities of Indonesia’. The speakers included Agustinus Wibowo (travel writer), Faisal Oddang (author), Will Harris (poet and critic) and Elizabeth Pisani (author, journalist and academic). They divulged into a variety of different topics surrounding the Indonesian identity and the influential factors of religion, age and personal experiences. Considering the fact that the nation is made up of thousands of islands, along with multiple ethnic groups, the speakers discussed what it meant to them to be Indonesian. This is something that I wouldn’t have even considered attending if it weren’t for my volunteering role, yet still felt enlightened by learning about a topic I had no previous knowledge about.

Explore!
During my free periods of time, it was fascinating to walk around the multiple stands and see the extent of the variety of different publishers. From academic to trade, the companies both big and small were discussing rights deals, advertising their products and hosting speaker events. It really wasn’t a surprise to find out that over twenty-five thousand publishing professionals attended this year.

Network.
As a Brooke’s English Literature and Publishing undergraduate student, it was lovely to see so many recent alumni now employees of several publishing companies around the country. Chatting to them and getting a sense for what the world of publishing is like gives me excitement for what the future holds once I graduate.

By 4:30pm I had finished my post for the day. After a long, inspirational day my friend and I dragged our tired selves back home to Oxford having gained such valuable insight into the world of publishing.

Written by Ellen Tweed, student.