2 May 2011

London Book Fair 2011

I was lucky enough to attend the London Book Fair this year - I've attended once before and last year we were sadly unable to attend due to the volcanic ash cloud issue. This year, however, there were no such unexpected problems so I got to go there again, yay! The visit was work related (I work in publishing) as this is a trade fair so mostly professionals attend, which makes the LBF slightly different to BEA or the Frankfurt Book Fair. It takes place in April every year at Earls Court.

London is my absolute favourite city in the whole world so to be able to attend a *book* fair there is like a dream come true. We were there for about two days, which were very, very busy and filled with countless meetings with publishers' sales reps, making new contacts, picking up catalogues etc. My schedule was completely full in advance so I didn't get to attend any of the lectures or presentations that were taking place, I was really just rushing from one appointment to another so I'm afraid I don't have any generally exciting news to share, sorry. :) In can say that it was a brilliant experience, lovely and very exciting - and rather exhausing too, but all worth it!

I honestly don't really know what to talk about so I'll just attach some pictures that I took - I hope you can see the slideshow below?
I took pictures of various stands (BEA & PW, Harper Collins, Hachette, Hodder, Little Brown, Simon & Schuster, Random House etc). There are some pictures taken from above to show the venue as such. There's one showing the entrance to Earls Court, taken from the top of a doubledecker bus as we drove past it after the first day. There's also a picture of my favourite stand - the Hay House one, which is pink & green & white and generally FABULOUS, I totally fell in love with it.
I apologize about the pics being a little blurry, but I was honestly in a hurry taking them so this was the best I could do to give you an idea of what this fair looks like.

If you have any questions, then please fire away. :)

10 comments:

Unknown said...

That it so kool! I would die to go there ...it looks so great! :D

Blueicegal ♥ said...

oh wow it looks wonderful! Good to know that you had fun!

Book Soulmates said...

Thank you for sharing some of your pictures :) It reminds of the trade show that I attend in Vegas, but for furniture instead of books. (I work in Hospitality.)

So glad you had a great trip - even exhausting, I bet it's still totally worth it!

♥Isalys

Anonymous said...

So lucky!! I envy you! I wanted to go to the book fair so bad in London this year. Maybe one day I'll get to actually attend, but it's good to know that it's mainly executives and industry people that attend. ~ Suz

The Norwegian BookGirl said...

I agree with you: London is a great city :)Thank you for sharing and for the pictures ( I always forget to take pictures). And the Hay House stand was beautiful!

Nina said...

I love London too, such a cool city! Sounds like you had a really good time. ;)

Lenasledgeblog.com said...

So glad to hear you were able to attend. I wish I could go one year. You said it was more like a trade show, so it was more of a business like atmosphere as in buying and selling from publishers, etc. As oppose to authors selling and signing books?

Tales of Whimsy said...

Oh wow. What fun!

Bookalicious Ramblings said...

Thanks, everyone! :)

LENA - yes, there's a definite business atmosphere prevailing at this fair. I think there are some signings and some lectures, but there are no massive ARC handouts like at BEA and not a lot of author panels or anything. It's mostly just professionals coming together, conducting meetings, catching up, buying book rights etc.

Lenasledgeblog.com said...

Oh Ok. It does sound more like a business atmosphere. Thanks for giving us a look into the fair.

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