thebookseller.com TUESDAY 14 03.2017 At the London Book Fair WORDS Katherine Cowdrey EXCLUSIVE Visit us at
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New media arrives at LBF with ‘huge sums’ A
N UNPRECEDENTED WAVE of new-media players are descending on the
London Book Fair, triggering a “dramatic explosion” in book- to-film/TV and audio deals. Hannah Griffiths, head of
literary acquisitions at produc- tion company All3Media, said the “exponential growth” in hours of airtime, owing to the rise of streaming platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, marked an “optimistic moment” for the trade. She added: “It’s like if five major dedicated book chains opened up in Britain tomorrow, each needing to fill the shelves... and with loads of money to spend on stock.” Former MI5 agent Tom Marcus has been one beneficiary, with a number of pre-LBF film and TV deals: Kudos (which recently produced the BBC’s adapta- tion of Louise Dought’s Apple Tree Yard) has bought rights to develop his Soldier, Spy into a “major” new drama series, while Chrysalis snapped up options to
Cumberbatch pounces on film rights for Haig’s latest
Fisher 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 differ- ent media. She said the climate was “a huge opportunit” 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 inter- est in the past six months than at any other time since found- ing his agency, referring to the
StudioCanal and actor Benedict Cumber- batch’s production company SunnyMarch have pre-empted film rights to Matt Haig’s forthcoming How to Stop Time (Canongate). The “Sherlock” actor will star and executive- produce the film along with Canongate c.e.o. Jamie Byng. The deal was struck by SunnyMarch m.d. Adam Ackland and Nick Marston of Curtis Brown on behalf of Haig and Conville & Walsh. The book is a “love story spanning centuries” about a man who looks to be in his forties, but has lived for hundreds of years.
“massive” amount of options he had done in the run-up to LBF. Bonomi added: “A good third of all my meetings at this year’s fair are with film and TV compa- nies to talk about plots and ideas and what people are developing from very early on—sometimes
Bodleian Library unearths new Tolkien
WORLD EXCLUSIVE The publishing division of Oxford Universit’s Bodleian Library is to release a title featuring illustrations, leters and other material from J R R Tolkien’s archives that have never before been seen by the public, to coincide with a major exhibition on The Lord of the Rings author in 2018. Tolkien: The Maker of Middle-Earth, writen by the Bodleian’s Tolkien archivist Catherine McIlwaine, promises to take readers “far beyond what they know” about the author. New material to be show- cased includes draſt manuscripts of The Hobbit, Middle-Earth illustrations and paintings by Tolkien,
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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 likely to be “quite a bit of action” at this year’s LBF. Griffiths said there was “abso-
lutely 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.” However, the flow of rights traf- fic is not one way, with a recent flurry of publishers acquiring from media companies. Bonnier Publishing last week splashed out on a book deal to adapt Netflix’s “The Crown”; Random House has bought Bridget Kendall’s Radio 5 series “Cold War”, as well as a two-book deal tied to “Woman’s Hour”; and HarperCollins took rights to new BBC science series “Secrets of the Human Body”.
and “leters from admirers including W H Auden, Joni Mitchell and Iris Murdoch”. Samuel Fanous, the Bodleian’s head of publish- ing, said the aim was to create a book that accom- panies an “unprecedented” exhibition, but also “to make something that will stand on its own”. The Bodleian will be selling the title in all English- language territories, while HarperCollins, Tolkien’s long-time publisher, has translation rights. Tolkien, who was an Oxford professor for 35 years, leſt the bulk of his archives to the Bodleian. Additional material in the book is from Marque- te Universit in Wisconsin. The exhibition on the author will open at the Bodleian in June 2018.
Frenzied auction for Brixton-set début p05 · Minette Walters ends decade hiatus p08 · Kim Scott Walwyn shortlist revealed p27 · Nermin Mollaoglu on the Turkish literary scene p20 · Olga Tokarczuk: Poland’s literary heavyweight p24 · Horace Bent at LBF p46
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