PDF? BBF? RAF? Nope: LBF.

Another Book Fair, another blogpost. I really need to get on with actually posting a little more often...

London Book Fair is very different from Bologna: it's for more than just children's publishing; appointments aren't just about acquisitions; it's a shorter commute from my house and the coffee is much worse. It's an intense few days (especially if you don't map your route through the fair between appointments and allow for vital toilet/tea-drinking/toasted panini-eating time).

Here are some of the things that happened at the fair:

• I got to hang around the beautiful new-look Bounce stand and catch some between-meeting chat with other publishers represented by the mightiest children's sales force in the land. And some of said sales force too.
• There was the joy of handing out Catnip's gorgeous new catalogue and, AND, some very lucky people received a shiny (literally), limited edition proof of Colin Mulhern's forthcoming thriller, Arabesque.
• I had the utter delight of seeing an author approach the Bounce stand, introduce himself and say that he's written a book and would like to talk to someone about it. This is not unusual. Lots of authors do this at the fair. BUT THIS BOY WAS FOURTEEN YEARS OLD. How cool is that? Fourteen and with the gumption to cold-call industry professionals at a massive trade fair - I know forty-year-old writers who'd quail at the prospect. Lucky for me I was able to have a chat with him about starting out in writing, give him advice on the resources available and tell him about a seminar that was running later in the day that he might be interested in checking out. This is the thing I love more than anything in the world: giving away what I know about publishing to people who want to listen.
• I went to the Best Seminar Ever, (or Express Yourself if you look at the programme) run by Bali Rai and Booktrust where a panel of teens talked about reading. It was just... refreshing and perfect. Sometimes the way publishing professionals talk about teen readers troubles me. It can seem a bit 'us' and 'them' and weirdly, 'we' seem to have an agenda when it comes to 'their' reading habits. I hope any of those prescriptive tendencies were assuaged by this panel of intelligent, interested and articulate people who were quite clearly capable of dictating their own reading choices in exactly the same way as the audience of 'grown-ups' were. More of these seminars, please. Publishers may not have the resources to test their books on the prospective audience, but it doesn't mean we don't want to listen. (Oh and the 14-y-o author did take my advice and go along for a listen and talked to Bali at the end. Whoop.)
• I managed the inevitable almost-missed appointment. 'I thought we said my stand - but you thought it was at yours... ARGH. Schedule fail.' But managed to make it work. Phew.
• Tuesday I managed to survive by only consuming a banana, a tracker bar and a KFC - which I don't recommend.
• Self-control was summoned when I saw Patrick Ness waiting outside the exhibition centre. He was wearing earphones (the international sign for 'I am happy in my alone time') and instead of running up to him and thanking him for enhancing my life with his words (and possibly sobbing about them), I walked past like a sensible grown up. Then I rushed over to the Bounce stand and told them I'd just seen Patrick Ness.
• And I got to chat to a ton of people outside of official meetings by wandering around, and making it to the tweetup. All of them awesome, obviously, because y'know, they like books and stuff.

TTYL*

*If you know what this means without looking it up on the internet, you are more down with the kids than any of the audience at the Express Yourself seminar.

Blogogna

The last couple of years I've spent the four days of the Bologna Book Fair angrily refreshing my twitter feed and wishing I was there tweeting about coffee and gelato and the Book of the Fair.

This year I went to Bologna. Unfortunately my phone and I had different ideas about the whole tweeting thing and I lost - ergo no tweets. Stupid phone.

But the point of going wasn't to just wander around and tweet about the fair, it was to experience it. It was a lovely thing to do, mainlining espresso and looking at all the lovely books other publishers are putting out there, perusing illustrators' wares, judging books by their covers and meeting up with people I don't see nearly often enough.

And then there was the shopping. I don't mean shoes and bags (no time for that), I mean shopping for NEW BOOKS! As I don't sell the rights to books (we have the wonderful Caroline Hill-Trevor on the case) I can focus on meeting up with agents and talking to them about what I'm looking for and what they have on their list.

The way 31-year-old Non feels about books is remarkably similar to the way 14-year-old Non felt about boys:

14-y-o Non: Fancied lots of boys. Some of them were taken. Some of them were out of her league.

31-y-o Non: Fancies lots of books. Some of them are taken. Some of them are out of my league.

14-y-o Non: Thought she had a type (bleached blonde hair with the roots growing through and piercings). Actually, she had many (she liked funny boys, clever boys, boys with dark hair, boys who were on the older end of the spectrum, boys who were closer to her own age, boys who had bad clothes but lots of potential)

31-y-o Non: Knows I have a type (something that makes me cry). Actually, I have many (I like funny books, clever books, books with dark themes, books for older readers, books which are closer to my own mental age of 3+, books which have bad titles but lots of potential)

14-y-o Non: Used to pester her mates who actually knew some boys to tell her about them. Were there any that they thought she'd like?

31-y-o Non: I consult professional agents who actually know some books to tell me about them. Are there any they think I'd like?

14-y-o Non: Would create elaborate fantasies about the boys she heard about - painted pictures with others' words and fell in love before she even spoke to the boy in question.

31-y-o Non: Creates elaborate fantasies about the books I hear about - briefing imagined covers with others' words and falling in love before I even read the book in question.

14-y-o Non: Suffered a lot of disappointment. And then fell in love with a wholly suitable boy, who lived up to his promise.

31-y-o Non: I am happy to suffer disappointment, because I am confident that I am about to fall in love with a wholly suitable book, which will live up to its promise.

Actually, I suspect I may fall in love with quite a few...

Pitch perfect

Book fairs are a lot like speed dates between editors and agents: you have thirty minutes face time to impress 3-2-1 GO! (There isn’t actually a buzzer at the end – but I would like to state for the record that there really should be, I’m sure it would facilitate better time keeping.)

You’ve really got to make these meetings at London or Bologna count since they may be your only opportunity to actually see the people with whom you hope to build a lasting (professional) relationship. At each appointment, you've got to strike a balance between talking about yourself and listening to the person(s) opposite.

Sometimes I get frustrated at the sound of my own voice telling people how many books we publish; what kind (reissues, buy-ins, one picture book, one YA and everything else in between); what I’m looking for. Then I remind myself that it's extremely important to give agents an idea of my tastes, my passions, my editorial proclivities. If I don't give them a clear impression of who I am as an editor, how can I expect them to send me the right kind of material?

So then it’s time for me to listen. As I do so, I’m thinking one thing:

Am I really in the market for this project?

Sometimes I stop a pitch before it gets going. I would never want to appear rude but since there’s only me at Catnip, if I don’t think something will fit, then there’s no one to disagree with me further down the line when the submission is sent over. Agents are busy people and I don’t want to waste their time chasing me in three months time for an answer I can give now.

Obviously if there’s even the slightest chance of a ‘yes’ to my question I’ll ask to see the submission. (Reviewing my meeting notes I see that I won’t have much time for sleeping over the next few months...)

But it's important to remember that although fairs are exciting and pitches might promise the world, it’s the writing that’ll deliver it. And I won't get to see that until I actually open the document.

Right, my thirty minutes is up. Time to move on to the next blog post.