The 2007 London International Book Fair

The London Fair is back as an important event in the international book world.

The unique and peculiar circumstances of the 2006 London fair-relocating it far outside of central London to a new, inconvenient, inadequate, and physically-punishing facility-came close to destroying the fair altogether. So much so that the major British publishing houses refused to participate in any future fair (after many twists and turns worthy of Machiavelli, they did-and were glad that they did).

In short, almost everyone went to the 2007 London Fair with absolutely no idea of what to expect.

We returned from London with contract offers for books in the areas of autobiography & biography, business, children's, computer science, health and alternative health, multi-cultural, photography, New Age, psychology, self-help, and women. During the fair, there was also strong interest in our fiction, young adult fiction and adult fairy tale titles.

Over all, 23,000 industry professionals from 109 countries attended the London fair in 2007. It should be even more successful in 2008.

The London Fair is now the most important international event after the Frankfurt Fair for selling rights to your books and obtaining distribution contracts for your current editions. London is the major spring event for international book sales.

"The London International Book Fair is becoming just as important for foreign sales as Frankfurt." - Eckhard Graf, editor, Random House, Germany.

The International Rights Centre at Earls Court was largely responsible for the success of the 2007 fair.

For the first time at a London fair, a substantial majority of the book professionals actively buying and selling rights were gathered together with a common focus in one unrestricted, convenient area. Because of poor layout of past exhibit facilities, London fairs were notorious for the challenges to fair participants in overcoming physical obstacles to meet productively with one another.

We'll be at the Rights Center again in 2008 with many of our long-standing contacts in an environment now acknowledged as the best for business at any international spring book fair.

For registration materials and information on the 2008 London and Seoul Book Fairs, click here.

Book fairs are made, of course, of many things that happen beyond their exhibit halls. Edinburgh's 'New Town' coffeehouse Glass & Thompson shown here is where unemployed teacher J.K. Rowling wrote in longhand much of what came to be published as Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.