Speed Dating at LBF 2010

As the dust settles from the skies over the UK, we should take a step back from the London Book Fair and ask whether the absence of travellers was an opportunity missed, or whether an opportunity to change? Today we read that their will be a bigger and better BEA as a result but is this what the industry needs?

A 30% reduction in attendance was is significant. However, here was more time to spend with people, loads of empty stands to squat and arranging ad hoc meetings in. There was less rushing between stands every the half hour, like speed daters responding to the bell and forced into playing musical chairs. There was time to spend with people who needed the time, or with friends you barely have time to say hello to. This was certainly the most social and relaxed of Book Fairs.

The question at the close of play was whether the cost in money and time was worth the effort. Whether the ‘speed dating’ fair is past its sell buy? Whether its time to change? Not only had the dust hardly settled and we were receiving invites to other industry conferences, details of other events and were left wondering how many social fixes it takes to do business?

Although many exhibitors still did good business at LBF 2010, many of those who relied heavily on overseas traders didn’t. There was a shark contrast between certain sectors with some stands merely being occupied. Monday looked like a Wednesday and Wednesday we didn’t even bother to go.

In recent years the conference programme has grown to busting point and now overflows. We may be wrong but feel that the conference or seminar programme is now disproportion to the event itself. At a time when there still is are digital this, that or the other seminars or conferences every month with the same faces often telling the same stories, why do the book fairs demand wall to wall of the same? Today we have video conferences, internet, email, social networks and yet we still want to travel to the show. Personally, I look at the colony model that Litopia is creating and see a viable and focused community that is genuinely developing and expanding and which is free of the bums on seats model of yesterday. They are not alone but frankly listening to a 20 minute presentation where half of it is an advert and all too often the other half says little is always time well spent.

On the Tuesday we met an author friend who was going to meet their agent and asked was that normal. The response was that the agent was ‘not busy’ and as they were is town it would be good to meet up. They had only met the week before. As the BT advert used to say, ‘It’s good to talk’.

So are Book Fairs about bodies through the door, bums on seats, contacts made, taking orders, creating new deals, attending seminars, seeing new offers, or social connections. Is speed dating the best way to meet the new partner?

The Show Must Go On?

Things change. Sounds glib, but reality is that nothing remains as it is forever. So why are we taken aback when many start to question the very social fabric of publishing – the book fair?

We didn’t go to BEA this year, not because we didn’t think it worthwhile, but simply because we felt a holiday break may prove more rewarding. We didn’t miss the frantic scurrying from stand to stand, the eating on the floor, the missed or late appointment and the sore feet? We missed the people one only sees at these events and of course Fred Bass’s Strand party. But life moves on and so should BEA, Frankfurt and London. We remember sitting in Frankfurt as the economic crunch was happening and thinking we were on some weird Titanic that refused to stop partying despite the reality of the world outside.

Just as the UK Booksellers Association has realised with their annual conference that the agenda moves on and there is always a need to question, revisit and improve. The BA conference may not work moving forward, or in its new form, but it has no god given right to do so just for the sake of it. It will be a pity if it now failed, but it has been doing so for some years, so it shouldn’t be a surprise.

It would be interesting to add the newsprint column inches devoted to Hay on Wye compared to the London Book Fair? Some may say that you can’t mix business events and consumer ones, but anyone who opens their eyes will tell you different. It’s a Book Event and should be managed, run and presented as one and remember there are only two people that matter, the creator who pours the effort in and the consumer who pays for it.

New Shoots of a Digital Spring

The London Book Fair as expected raised the digital bar with a string of announcements which indicate that there is no digital hiding place and action has at last started in the UK trade. Random declared widget races formally open with 500 runners today and 5000 by the end of the year. It was interesting to see their UK widget and it raises the question if the US will adopt it or whether digital federalism will prevail. Penguin and Macmillan declared digital frontlist release programmes, Faber announced their digital plans and Bertrams their vault. Academic publishers continued to move forward at pace, Ingram and Gardners showed their grasp of the issues, market and the benefits of the foundations they have already have lain.

Francis Bennett organised a series of seminars culminating in the lively and engaging Crossing the New Frontier: America and the Digital Revolution. Which showed us that although the US was indeed moving forward on many fronts, it was in reality, only a little further along the road than the UK. A number of questions were raised which merit debate and we will write separately on these over the next few days:

• The Organisational Impact of Digitisation
• Retail versus Library
• Widgets and marketing
• The Gorilla in the back yard
• Experiments
• Formats
• Double Your Money
• Is the world Publisher Centric?

Does one swallow make summer? Obviously not, but the mood of optimism show that Digital Publishing, is indeed becoming Publishing.