24.03.17
www.thebookseller.com
THE LEAD STORY LONDON BOOK FAIR ROUND-UP
07 London Book Fair
of Men, and Working Title the rights to Whistleblower. Katie McCalmont, Netflix’s literary
scout in the UK at Maria B Campbell Associates, said the number of new-media buyers had gone up “big time”, in tandem with “a blurring of boundaries” between different media. She added that the climate was “a huge opportunity” for publishers and agents. LBA Books m.d. Luigi Bonomi, who
recently became the agent for BBC Radio, said he had seen more film and TV interest in the past six months than at any other time since founding his agency, referring to the “massive” amount of options he had struck in the run-up to LBF. He added: “A good third of all my meetings at this year’s fair were with film and TV companies to talk about plots and ideas and what people are developing from very early on, sometimes before I’ve even sold the book to the publisher.” Mad Rabbit literary scout Philippa
Donovan, who met ahead of the fair with fellow US scouts for Netflix, Amazon Prime, Jerry Bruckheimer Films and Studio 8, agreed, saying there was “quite a bit of action” at this year’s LBF.
Griffiths said there was “absolutely no doubt” that more players in the market raised the stakes, and observed that deals were being cut much earlier. “Rights are routinely— even for 18-month options, where you’re buying exclusive rights to consider a project— going for huge sums.”
IPA boss: publishers can prosper ‘post-truth’
P
ublishers should stand as “beacons of trustworthiness” in an age of fake news and
alternative facts, International Publishers Association president Michiel Kolman has said.
Kolman, who is senior vice-
president of global academic relations at Elsevier, told The Bookseller that he hoped publishers would “take a leading role in providing trustworthy, reliable information—it’s the core of what we do. An STM publisher spends time on the selection of articles, then works with an author so the article is enhanced, and only high-quality work is published. That’s also core to a literary house. I really hope, in this turbulent world, that publishers are beacons of trustworthiness.” Kolman said freedom to publish
was central to the IPA’s activity—and that it was under threat across the world. The trade body and Kristenn Einarsson, the new head of its Freedom to Publish Committee, are engaged on such issues. IPA staff may attend the imminent trial of Turkish writer Asli Erdoğan, and Kolman will travel to China next month to meet with publishers, Chinese publishing association members and government officials, with freedom to publish on the agenda alongside piracy concerns. Asked where he stood on Simon
& Schuster US dropping far-right commentator Milo Yiannopoulos’ book, Kolman said, “There is the criterion of quality—would [the title] pass the test? And he might be expressing an opinion most disagree with, but should he not have a vehicle to express it?”
Kolman said he believed publishers
could “drive change—in the right way” in terms of technology altering the fabric of society. “In 10 years, jobs we used to have [will have] disappeared, and new ones appeared—we will live in a Big Data society. To make that change happen smoothly, to have the right information, is crucial. Science plays a crucial role, as does education. We will have to educate people for different roles, different jobs. Publishers can.”
Pictured top agent Nermin Mollaoglu receives the LBF International Awards’ Literary Agent gong from Christopher MacLehose; above author Ian McEwan presents Brazilian publisher Luis Schwarcz with his Lifetime Achievement Award
LBF International Awards herald trade
Al-Qasimi were among the winners at the London Book Fair International Excellence Awards (15th March). Sultan Al-Qasimi was given the Simon Master Chairman’s Award for his contribution to the UAE’s publishing industry. The Literary Translation Initiative Award also returned to the emirate, with Arabic Literature (in English) founder Marcia Lynx Qualey triumphant for her “dedication to creating cross-cultural understanding in the diverse world of Arabic literature”, the judges said. Kalem Agency founder
T
urkish agent Nermin Mollaoglu, HarperCollins UK and Sharjah ruler Sultan bin Mohammed
BY THE BOOKSELLER NEWS TEAM
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