Live from London Book Fair

Some thoughts, observations and intel....

Three days, multiples cups of coffee, thousands of steps pounding around Kensington’s Olympia and it’s a wrap.

Before I went to LBF I was on an Author WhatsApp group chat and piped up that I was going. ‘Are we allowed?’ Said one author friend. ‘Why?’ asked another.

To answer - yes, authors are allowed to go to London Book Fair, and there is so much value to attending. I’ve been going for years now and the number of creatives I see there is creeping up.

There’s a whole corner of the top floor of the Olympia devoted to writers. Amazon’s KDP platform have a big stand there every fair and always put on a number of super helpful talks on the Author HQ stage.

This year there were sessions of everything from Booktok to Print on Demand books. There were talks from Taylor Jenkins Reid, Richard Osman and Lemn Sissy. I’m not sure where the myth comes from that authors aren’t allowed to go to LBF but it’s a belief that’s out there.

My friend’s agent raised a disapproving eye-brow when she told him she was coming, but it’s old fashioned thinking. Fairs are traditionally a place where agents and editors get deal done and scouts and producers network, but writers are at the core of the whole business and absolutely should be there. After all, knowledge is power, and informed authors who take an interest in the publishing business are more likely to make better strategic decisions about their careers.

I was one of the first through the doors at 9am on Tuesday as if it was the Selfridges’ January sales. It felt buzzy from the get-go. By lunchtime, industry veterans were reporting that it felt back to pre-pandemic levels. There was no standout ‘book of the fair’ although Broken Country by Clare Leslie went for a rumoured £800k. There were other six-figure pre-empts, the presence of US based film and tv executives was apparently higher than ever.

Meanwhile I’ve never seen the tech theatre so busy. Wednesday was audio day and it was beyond standing room only (ie it spilled outside the theatre with a crowd so deep you couldn’t even hear the talk!) for plum sessions like ‘Audiobooks on Spotify’ and ‘Audiobooks - the in-car revolution.’ I found it better to seek out 1:1s with the speakers who were generally milling around and happy to talk and answer questions.

I learned a lot. Had stuff confirmed. And so much free stuff! Spotify had the best free tote bags and I liked the complimentary copies of the New York Times Review of Books and The Bookseller, which were worth the entry fee alone.

Here’s a few things I found out….