36 hours at the London Book Fair
I’ve just spent a day and a half at the London Book Fair, primarily researching a feature on ebooks – more of which tomorrow. The LBF is the UK trade show for publishers, retailers and book industry service providers.
The first thing that struck me when wandering around the Earls Court venue was that it seemed so much busier than last year. Aisles seemed narrower, with more stands squeezed in, and it was difficult trying to negotiate a route past slow-moving foreign delegates and publishing assistants trundling heavy trolleys full of book proofs. Perhaps the recession had forced more of the book trade to venture out in search of the big deal that might keep them afloat for another year.
Something that quickly becomes apparent as you wander past the many thousands of books being whored is that few of them will actually sell. For a start, there are far too many of them. Most will not find space on the bookshelves and in the review columns, and will remain unsold and unread.
Also, content is far less important than profile. Big announcements are made about new books from Chris Evans and Dan Brown. They will sell because they are by Chris Evans and Dan Brown. Somewhere among these bustling aisles could be the greatest book ever written but, unless it has a big name attached, those in attendance will bustle on by.
And then, of course, there are the many books on display that don’t deserve an audience – those that are ill-conceived or badly produced, and those with such a ridiculously niche appeal that you feel the author could have satisfied all potential demand by printing a single copy on an A4 desktop printer.
The entire output of one American publisher, who I won’t name, falls into this category. I’d spoken to him last year, and initially felt sorry for this old chap with his boxes of unsaleable cheaply-produced Sherlock Holmes rip-offs, until I found out he was a vanity publisher, charging authors to publish their work AND encouraging them to spend thousands of dollars travelling to London to needlessly attend the fair.
The LBF is best avoided by writers – unless they have the thickest of skins. The prospect of finding hundreds of publishers – plus numerous agents, distributors and other book industry bods – gathered together under one roof might seem tempting, but authors hoping to generate interest in their unpublished manuscript or self-published novel will almost certainly receive the shortest of shrift.
Stepping outside to enjoy the sunshine at lunch time I was approached by an author who was touting a frighteningly militant expose of the medical industry, a shoddily-produced self-published copy of which she brandished in front of me. Luckily I was able to defend myself with my press pass, explaining that I had no clout whatsoever within the industry.
Last year, while wearing a publisher’s pass, I had been accosted by an author selling a raunchy memoir of his time as a male stripper. I politely made my excuses, and he handed me his business card – which featured a colour photograph of his penis. I passed his details on to a colleague.
This year I was interested to see James Patterson signing copies of a book that he has not even written. His name is on the cover of 8th Confession, in HUGE LETTERS. Underneath, in much smaller type, it says “with Maxine Paetro”. Patterson came up with the plot, apparently (“Unconventional cop juggles personal problems while playing cat and mouse with inventively gruesome serial killer? Kerching!”). Paetro, who actually wrote the thing, was not at the signing session.
Tech-wise, aside from ebook stuff, of which there was lots, I was interested to take a look at the Espresso Book Machine, an on-demand book printer about the size of an office photocopier that produces individual paperback books at a speed of 100 pages per minute. The final quality was impressive – perhaps not quite as good as a well-produced paperback, but certainly good enough to suggest that this might represent the future of retailing backlist books. Blackwell’s are the first UK retailer to get onboard, and the chain’s first Espresso machine can be found at its Charing Cross store.
Grumble-wise, I wasn’t allowed to take photos inside the LBF for undetermined reasons, and for the second year running I left with no decent free stuff. Everyone else, it seemed, was leaving with cotton shoulder bags stuffed with proof edition blockbusters, promotional t-shirts and, for all I know, shiny new Sony Readers. I left with some unwanted flyers and a digitally-produced copy of the Koran.
