What’s new at London Book Fair 2015?

The countdown has begun for one of the most awaited book fair of the world – the London Book Fair. The show is slated from April 14-16, 2015 at Olympia, in West London and the organisers are busy making it one of the most memorable and successful fair. Here’s an update on this year’s LBF. International publishers to be part of LBF Mexico Market Focus matchmaking sessions

The London Book Fair (LBF), in partnership with The Publishers Association (PA), Conaculta and Caniem in Mexico, are organising the Mexico Market Focus Professional Programme for LBF 2015. LBF Mexico’s Market Focus is the twelfth Market Focus programme and it will be one of the most ambitious yet. It encompasses almost 16 months of planned activity, centring on activity at The London Book Fair itself on April 14-16, 2015. The Professional Programme will hear from the cream of Mexican publishing community in a series of business-to-business events, and it will include many more matchmaking opportunities for international and Mexican publishers. Confirmed speakers from Mexico include representatives of Caniem, Conaculta, FCE, Planeta and Sexto Piso.

Alongside the Professional Programme, Market Focus Mexico will also enjoy a rich cultural programme, featuring contemporary writers from Mexico, which will be curated for LBF by The British Council, in partnership with Conaculta, Caniem and other partners in Mexico.

As per Jacks Thomas, director, The London Book Fair, “We’re delighted to welcome the Mexican publishing industry to London when Mexico will be The London Book Fair’s Market Focus country. The 2015 Market Focus is a wonderful opportunity to capture the zeitgeist—a love of all things Mexican! We know that Mexican publishers, agents, authors and poets will receive a very warm welcome in London. This programme offers great opportunities for international publishers to grow their business links with Mexican trade, education and academic publishers. As well as professional development and author events, the focus this year is on matchmaking sessions between international and Mexican publishers so more rights deals can be struck. We advise international publishers to sign-up early to take part.”

While, Richard Mollet, chief executive, The Publishers Association (UK), said, “The Mexico Market Focus Professional Programme is an incredibly important element of London Book Fair 2015. It will give Mexican publishers key insights into the UK market along with contacts and real business opportunities, as well as allowing UK publishers wishing to expand into the Latin American markets to build closer relationships with their Mexican counterparts. We are particularly delighted that this year the programme is not limited to the confines of the fair, but instead will provide year-long engagement with this exciting market.”

Ricardo Cayuela Gally, general director, Conaculta, said, “The London Book Fair is the perfect opportunity for Mexico’s publishing industry to thrive. Publishers, agents, translators and all professionals from the book chain are eager to work with our dynamic literary community, and with the growing industry that makes it possible. As Market Focus, we will be able to showcase our strengths and share that with our counterparts in London, always with the aim of shaping books into the best business possible, sponsoring readership and promoting our talented authors.”

The London Book Fair Market Focus programme has been very successful for previous countries and regions who have participated, leaving a long legacy of success and increased publisher links across the world. When Turkey was Market Focus in 2013, Bloomsbury acquired two novels from a Turkish author, Hasan Ali Toptas, and a leading Turkish agency, Kalem Agency, sold rights to several authors including Hakan Gunday and Çiler Ilhan. In 2012, China’s Bi Feiyu sold rights to his work Massage to Penguin and Tie Ning, sold The Bathing Girls to Macmillan.

Publishing for Digital Minds with multilingual social media backchannel

Publishing for Digital Minds has recruited a team of ‘polyglot’ social media experts to deliver a conference backchannel in Mandarin, Spanish, Portuguese, German and Turkish. These ‘polyglots’ will be drawn from the markets most widely represented in the conference’s international audience, which welcomes large delegations from China, India and Latin America as well as Europe and North America. These specially recruited industry experts will ensure that Publishing for Digital Mind’s social media represents the global reach of its audience. They will do this by using popular social networks to report on the conference with followers in their home territories.

To date The London Book Fair has recruited expert tweeters to live-tweet Publishing for Digital Minds in Portuguese, Spanish and Turkish; a Chinese microblogging professional to live-blog proceedings via Weibo; and a German-speaker to report on the conference on Google Plus and Xing, the two most widely-used social networks by professionals.

Yet more experts are still needed to reflect the full diversity of Publishing for Digital Minds audience. The London Book Fair is therefore appealing for publishing polyglots to come forward to cover the conference in the native languages of major European and Asian publishing markets, including Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Italian, French, Hindi and Malay.

Authors of the Day The Authors of the Day showcases one author across each day of the Fair, in a schedule that includes events, book signings, photo calls and meetings with international publishing contacts for each attending author. This year’s internationally acclaimed writers are: David Nicholls, Digital Author of the Day, Monday 13 April 2015; Deborah Moggach, General Trade Author of the Day, Tuesday 14 April 2015; Valeria Luiselli, Market Focus Author of the Day, Wednesday 15 April 2015; and Anthony Browne, Children’s Author of the Day, Thursday 16 April 2015. Jacks Thomas, director, the London Book Fair, shared, “Each year I think The London Book Fair Author of the Day programme cannot equal its predecessor. Each year I am proved wrong as is evident from the 2015 line-up whose achievements are rich, varied and undeniably impressive and whose work inspires, has inspired and continues to inspire readers across the globe. From page to screen, our authors this year are versatile and hugely talented, we cannot wait to give a global stage to them and their work at this year’s book fair and to share them with consumers through London Book & Screen Week.”