Wednesday, April 13, 2011

London Book Fair

Had an amazing day yesterday at the London Book Fair, sited at Earl's Court. Sorry this photo of the exterior is a bit thin. Taken on my iPhone.

Apologies to all those friends and acquaintances who were also there yesterday but I didn't manage to catch up with. I know many Twitter and Facebook friends were about, and I did spot some and wave or have a quick chat - such as Danuta Kean, Carol McGrath, Kate Allan, and Lyn Vernham among others - but I missed a whole bunch of that crowd by failing to make the London Book Fair Tweetup.

Not my fault, I hadn't realised events would be on so late and booked my train for 8pm, then found that to change my Advance ticket would cost over thirty quid. Which seemed a bit steep, even for the undoubted pleasure of a LBF Tweetup. So I trundled home instead, and my sore feet thanked me for it.

Had a productive day, meeting people in independent publishing and discussing Embrace Books, and my role there as editor. I took along Rachel Lyndhurst's Storm's Heart beautiful glossy print edition as a sample, and allowed people to fondle it jealously.


And as an author myself, I met up with both my editors at Transworld, and also with my lovely and fantastically talented agent, Luigi Bonomi - who is very excited about the Young Adult novel I'm currently writing.

I received back some line edits on my forthcoming novel - in paper form, no less, egad! roughly 550 pages to carry home - and met some new faces in publishing as my alter-ego, a historical novelist.

It was a brilliant day and I thoroughly enjoyed it. A massively busy place though - must have walked about ten miles just going round and round the hundreds of stalls!

9 comments:

Rachel Lyndhurst said...

You carried my book all that way? I'm speechless with gratitude, Jane. Thank you so very, very much!!

Jane Holland said...

Huh, I barely noticed the weight of Storm's Heart. Carrying my own marked-up paper ms back though, in a large Transworld cloth bag given to me specially for the purpose, was rather more noticeable. But then it's nearly two thirds longer.

Anyway, it was my pleasure. Everyone I showed it to cooed over the lovely cover. ;-)

Talli Roland said...

Aw, so sorry you couldn't make the tweet up! Next time. We missed you. :(

Lorna F said...

It sounds great, Jane. Wish I could have gone.

Liz Harris said...

It sounds as if you had a great Book Fair, Jane - both you and your alter ego, Victoria. That's fabulous.

Liz x

Jane Holland said...

Missed you too, Talli!

Perhaps next year I'll stay over in London, not go back.

That may be more practical, looking at how late that tweetup seemed to be going on. ;-)

Poetry Pleases! said...

Dear Jane

I'm delighted to see that the London Book Fair is back on its feet as it was badly affected by the Icelandic ash cloud last year in the sense that hardly anybody came. I was at school with Andrew Franklin, editor of Profile Books, who is a regular attendee. He's a multi-millionaire now but he still answers my e-mails!

Best wishes from Simon

Poetry Pleases! said...

Dear Jane

Glad you had a good time!

Best wishes from Simon

Earls Court Hotels said...

Thanks for the posting Jane - we had a great show this year too - Seemed to be a busier, buzzier feel to previous years.

Liked your note about carrying all those papers home - Maybe the organisers could arrange for a home delivery service!

James & the team