If you are an aspiring author or a publishing hopeful, you might have heard those in the industry making reference to book fairs. A book fair is an international trade event where rights agents, scouts, and publishers from across the world come together to talk about books. There are several book fairs each year, held in cities across the world – London, Bologna, Turin and Frankfurt, to name a few – but the purpose is always the same: to showcase the authors and titles we represent to publishing individuals worldwide, and to build and sustain international relationships within the publishing industry.

Although book fairs are typically held over a few days, they are the culmination of months of preparation. Ahead of the fair, we prepare our rights guide (a catalogue of our book fair titles and key information which we use when pitching to publishers), we hone our pitches, we meet with scouts to discuss upcoming titles and we put together our meeting schedules.

During the fair, you will find me and fellow translation rights agents at tables in the International Rights Centre (IRC). Each literary agency is designated a series of tables in the IRC where they hold meetings for the duration of the fair. Meetings are often held in thirty-minute slots. During meetings with editors from international publishing houses, we try to get a sense of their taste, what genres and formats are performing well in their markets and why, and if there have been any unexpected successes. Then we tailor our pitches to the editor and what they’re looking for. I like to think of bookfair meetings as publishing speed-dating. After the fair, we follow up with editors and send them the materials they have requested.

The pandemic made in-person fairs impossible in 2020 and 2021, and meetings migrated online. Although it has meant that Zoom and Teams etc. are now a more ready part of our toolkits, it is hard to recreate the buzz of a fair through a computer screen. Luckily, we were able to return to in-person events in 2022. Our preparation for the London Book Fair in April this year is well under way!