The Book Fair Day One: London Calling
It’s Sunday night, March 5th, and that means only two things: the first day of the London Book Fair is over and if London does love the Oscars, why doesn’t any hotel-channel air them?
But back to the books.
Today was the first day of the three day event known as the LBF, or as we like to call it, “the London Book Fair”. This year, the fair has moved to the ExCeL convention center. Where is ExCeL? Who knows. I think we crossed water and I had to turn my watch ahead an hour. It is far, far, far away. And being so far away, it’s the big topic of conversation. ‘How did you get here’ will be the first thing you say to people – strangers, colleagues, agents. It’s the official opening line of the fair.
The fair. For those of you who care, the London Book Fair is, essentially, a fair for publishers (agents, editors, rights, sales) to discuss upcoming books with foreign publishers (agents, editors, rights, sales). What rights are available, who owns those rights, and the best pick-up line, ‘do you want to see it’.
But let’s get down to the observations:
First off, the convention center is three years away. And at 9:00am today, oddly cold. Did they forget we were coming and didn’t turn on the heat? And at 5:00pm today, oddly hot.
Sunday is the least crowded day. But at 3:00, there are still long lines to grab a shitty sandwich. There are shows, I assume, at this convention hall every weekend. At what point will restaurants realize ‘there might be some people here, we might want to have more staff’? I’m packing the mini-bar peanuts for tomorrow.
I have also decided to answer the question “what types of books are you looking for” with the simple answer “smutty ones”. Makes for a good conversation.
We are sharing the convention center with the spa show! Tanning booths, towels, oils, oh my! We are so crashing that tomorrow.
Met with Matt Weiland, the Deputy Editor from Granta and co-editor of our upcoming Thinking Fan’s Guide to the World Cup. He was cool. And I love Granta.
And the end of Day 1 is followed by the famous HarperCollins party at the Home House. It’s packed and people do dress up a bit for it. Which is nice.
Day 2, tomorrow
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