The LBF and the Volcano

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The LBF is the London Book Fair and it is very, very important to the publishing industry. Every year, agents, publishers, editors, and movie execs looking for film-friendly books descend on London for a big schmoozefest. Most of the buying and selling of subsidiary and translation rights, and also a lot of film rights, gets done at the London Book Fair and at the Frankfurt Book Fair, which is held in October.

Well, the London Book Fair is happening in Earls Court in London right now, and thanks to a certain pesky volcano in Iceland that’s spewing its ash all over the skies above Europe, attendance is way, way down. Basically the only people there are those who decided to arrive early (very early, since the volcano shut down air traffic last Thursday and the Book Fair only started this morning) or the standard UK attendees. Last I heard, about a fifth of the seminars and events are already cancelled and many, many booths are empty, the publishers and agents who had rented them being unable to get flights.

My own agent always has a rep at LBF or attends herself, and I usually pick up at least one or two foreign sales out of it. I suspect Frankfurt will be bigger than ever this fall as a result, but the publishing industry was already hurting. This isn’t going to help.

On a personal note, my daughter is attending school in London this semester and decided to spend her spring vacation visiting a good friend in the Loire Valley. She was supposed to have a seat back to London on the Eurostar this morning, but I haven't heard from her yet. Fingers crossed.