Publishing and selling books in bulk is becoming more difficult each year. Paper and electricity prices are rising. The printed book – once the queen of culture – is now like an outdated prince: it is fun to take a selfie with him, but you would rather spend your free time with the younger and trendier Spotify, Amazon Kindle or – let’s face it – videos on TikTok. Given this, the event itself – London Book Fair (LBF) is a miracle. Experts from around the world gather annually at Olympia London and discuss how to publish books in paper and digital format, and then sell them, hopefully for a profit. This year at LBF, even TikTok was present, launching their #BookTok, a hashtag dedicated to book marketing. In particular, TikTok is promoting its partner, the industry giant Penguin Random House: it is to their books you can now add direct links on this social network. Good for TikTok (Homo Legens will finally think about opening an account there), and even better for Penguin Random House, who is clearly trying to fend off the omniscient Amazon.
Meanwhile, for individual authors publishing and selling their books is becoming easier – via the very same Amazon and other self-pub platforms. You write, you edit, you upload, and there you have it – a finished e-book. Want printed copies? You can order them directly from printing houses. It is the next step that is terrifying – getting your book noticed. It is no coincidence that at LBF this year there are many companies aimed specifically at the self-pub market. Printers, self-pub agents, so-called “hybrid” publishing services that publish everyone for money. Here we have Mill City Press (USA), Troubador Publishing (UK), eBookPro (Israel) and, of course, Nielsen BookData, which issues ISBNs in the UK. Interestingly, NielsenIQ is the world’s leading consumer research company. It looks like world corporations decide a lot in the world of books. A lot, but not everything.
The London Book Fair has existed since 1971 (although in 1971-76 it was called the Specialist Publishers’ Exhibition for Librarians). One can imagine what a magical event it was then, in pre-Internet times, when books served as the main source of knowledge. In the 1990s, we entered the post-Gutenberg era: we are turning to Google for knowledge now, and not to a dusty tome on the shelf. However, seeing your own autobiography in a bookshop is still considered prestigious. Memoirs of famous people are still selling well. Guess whose photograph you see upon entering LBF 2023? No, not Charles III, but a young Barbra Streisand – the long-awaited memoir of the singer and actress is coming out on November 7, 2023, published by Penguin Random House.
Let’s keep moving. Stands of publishing empires (Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Pan Macmillan etc.) intersperse the pavilions of different countries. It is especially lively in France and Italy; Switzerland and Germany are quietly represented; Poland’s pavilion is getting bigger each year.
This year publishers from the Arab world are more integrated and are located side by side with European firms: for example, the Sharjah Book Authority (UAE) is positioned right next to the British publisher Pimpernel Press. Bloomsbury Publishing continues to lure customers with the Harry Potter franchise: on October 10, 2023 they will release The Harry Potter Wizarding Almanac. Present at the Fair are also other rulers of young minds – publishers of textbooks, including CGP. CGP’s founder, Richard Parsons, started writing textbooks in 1995 and has since earned over £50,000,000 with his publishing business. Truly, if you want to become rich, write a good textbook!
We walk on. Czech Republic pavilion is neighbouring Spain’s. The latter is showcasing Prince Harry’s autobiography in Spanish, titled En la sombra. That is not quite the same as The Spare. Sultrier. Next are the stands of printing houses offering wholesale services to publishers. Printing houses from Turkey, India, Indonesia. My eye is drawn to a beautiful edition of JK Rowling’s fairy tale The Ickabog. What does Rowling’s tale, published by the French giant Hachette Book Group in 2020, have to do with India? It turns out that the first edition was printed in India by a company that started as a bank letter press in 1941 – Manipal Technologies Limited. The history of this Rowling publication is one of many examples of outsourcing in the global book market.
Stands with the highest quality books belong, of course, to publishing houses run by libraries and universities. Oxford’s Bodleian Library and the British Library are displaying beautiful volumes. The latter is showcasing an intriguing album titled Poems in Progress: Drafts from Master Poets. I open it at random – and suddenly I am looking at Pushkin – but in English. The granddaughter of Charles Darwin, the British poetess Frances Cornford translated his poem “The Prisoner”, in collaboration with her friend, Albert Einstein’s student Esther Polianowsky Salaman. In 1943, Salaman and Cornford published a collection of poetic translations Poems from the Russian (Faber and Faber). Thank you, the British Library, for this wonderful insight into your collections!
This chance meeting with Pushkin at the Fair is not my only discovery. On the shelf of the publishing house Kahn & Averill, I notice a book about Valentin Berlinsky (1925-2008), famous cellist and founder of the Borodin Quartet. The book was compiled by his granddaughter – Maria Matalaev, herself a talented pianist living in Paris. The book was first published in French, and now in English – Valentin Berlinsky: A Quartet for Life (Kahn & Averill, 2018).
I don’t hope to see Chekhov, Tolstoy or Dostoevsky: their country is now non grata. As expected, I find Stalin and Putin on the covers. Yale University Press is exhibiting Philip Snow’s China and Russia: Four Centuries of Conflict and Concord (2023) and Geoffrey Roberts, Stalin’s Library: A Dictator and His Books. London-born Professor Geoffrey Roberts is a specialist in Soviet history at the University College Cork. On the stand of a Christian publishing house SPCK (The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge) I see a book Holy Russia? Holy War? Why the Russian Church is Backing Putin Against Ukraine, by Katherine Kelaidis. Kelaidis is the Director of Research and Content at the National Hellenic Museum in Chicago, and an associate fellow of the Institute of Orthodox Christian Studies, Cambridge, England. The poster of the book – a photograph of Putin and Kirill embracing – somewhat clashes with other titles displayed by SPCK – children’s books on Christian topics.
Just like last year, I am finishing my review with the most important item – the Ukrainian stand. This year it has a special name – Ukraine: Sensitive content. It is this warning that is often added to painful reports from Ukraine. Part of the stand is an installation of tables and chairs from Ukrainian libraries destroyed by Russian bombs. Ukraine is the guest spotlight at LBF 2023. Several presentations are dedicated to the future of Ukrainian literature at the English PEN salon. British publishers produced several books about the war, including: Luke Harding, Invasion: Russia’s Bloody War and Ukraine’s Fight for Survival (Guardian Faber, 2022) and War Diary of the Ukrainian Resistance – a book written by journalists from The Kyiv Independent, founded in 2021 by former employees of the Kyiv Post (Flint Books, an imprint of the British publisher The History Press, 2023). Oleksandra Koval, director of the Ukrainian Book Institute, expressed her gratitude to the British Council and the Ukrainian Institute in London for supporting Ukrainian authors and publishers.
Installation Ukraine: Sensitive Content at the Ukrainian stand
Ukraine is the guest spotlight of LBF 2023
War Diary of the Ukrainian Resistance, written by journalists from The Kyiv Independent (Flint Books)
Making noise at the Fair is a book by Carlo Vecce Il sorriso di Caterina: La madre di Leonardo, about the possible mother of Leonardo da Vinci (Giunti publishing house). The theory that she was a freed slave remains in question. Another book about a woman overlooked by history was released by HarperCollins with the sensational title Mrs Van Gogh – about Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, wife of the artist’s brother. It was she who published Van Gogh’s famous letters to “Brother Theo”.
Lessons from LBF 2023:
The London Book Fair is not a cozy place for readers. Readers in 2023 will feel more at home in independent bookshops. There are a few events for writers at the fair, but contents of their books are not commonly discussed here. Books are a product, like wool or oil, and people meet at the LBF to discuss bulk supply, foreign rights, and logistics. It is possible to meet with a literary agent at the LBF, but all meetings must be booked in advance.
There are few spontaneous meetings at the London Book Fair. About 12-13 years ago publishers used to entice readers to their stands, offering new books, talking about new authors. Now only a handful of people leaf through books at the Fair, and a person who takes a book from the publisher’s stand is eyed with surprise. Those who like to read and leaf through books should also consider antique book fairs: London International Antiquarian Book Fair (May 20-21, 2023) and Firsts (Saatchi Gallery, May 18-21, 2023).
But if you really want to “catch” the latest trends in book publishing, find out what big publishers have in store for us and meet interesting people from different countries, you should still go to LBF. Colourful, cleverly designed stands of publishing giants and talks along the lines “Where are we all going, despite Brexit, global warming and war” – you will find them at LBF 2024. Only hopefully, instead of war there will be peace.
