My LBF Horace Bent
Owing to overwhelming—okay, moderate—public demand, the erstwhile custodian of the Organ of the Book Trade returns to guide you around the aisles of the London Book Fair...
Bent’s Notes C
IAO, RAGAZZI! WAIT, where the heck am I? It seems like only yesterday that I was main- lining gelato in the Bologna sunshine. But
no, if it’s Tuesday, it must be LBF. Yet it sometimes feels as if you are still in Bologna, stuck out there in the hinterlands of West Hall Upper—am I right, children’s publishers?
I jest—mostly because if there is anyone who
adores a bit of ribbing about the goings-on at Olympia, it is Jacks “El Jefe” Thomas1
, but also
because the LBF boss has long since made it buzzy up there in WHU, with the Children’s Hub and Author HQ. The later has its drawbacks: sure, you get the multitudes traipsing in to see the likes of David Baldacci being quizzed by Mark Lawson, but many of its events are geared towards those uneas- iest of bedfellows for the traditional trade: self- published writers. I know, I know, we are supposed to be in the
mature years of self-publishing, where lines are blurred, hybird deals abound, and authors indie and trad-published skip through fields of four- figure advances into the sunset. But if we’re honest, legacy houses are still nervy about indie authors: signing them means you are as likely to continue a Kindle star’s momentum as you are to get absolutely dragged by them on social media, as Kerry Wilkinson2
recently did in a Donald Trump-
stle Twiter rant against his publisher Macmil- lan. Should we be surprised? Online is where indie authors express themselves, aſter all, and publish- ers of a more traditional author such as—just throwing out a random name, here—James Patter-
Management
PUBLISHER AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE Nigel Roby 0361
Editorial
EDITOR Philip Jones 0364
DEPUTY EDITOR Benedicte Page 0367
NEWS EDITOR Lisa Campbell 0369
REPORTERS Katherine Cowdrey 0365 Natasha Onwuemezi 0366 Heloise Wood 0368
FEATURES AND INSIGHT EDITOR
Tom Tivnan 0373
CHARTS AND DATA ANALYST Kiera O’Brien 0375
BOOKS EDITOR Alice O’Keeffe 0372
CHILDREN’S EDITOR
Charlotte Eyre 0370 Contributors
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Molly Flatt, Caroline Sanderson
Established in 1858, The Bookseller incorporates Bent’s Literary Advertiser (est. 1802)
BOOK PREVIEWERS Caroline Sanderson, Fiona Noble, Alison Flood
son know that they will only be ranted at in angry late-night phone calls. It pains one to mention Stormy Daniels’ brief
(by her account, mercifully brief) fling, but Trump- ski has set the tone for this LBF by coincidentally meeting with the Baltic states’ leaders last week. The day aſter, also coincidentally, the Russians ran live-fire missile tests in the Baltic Sea. There will be no silly and feckless shows of force between Russia and our Market Focus countries here at LBF, we’re assured—I mean, we’re civilised; we’re not Emma- nuel Macron at Salon du Livre. Kicking off part of the Baltic states’ Market
Focus festivities was last night’s libations for the #IamIntrovert Latvian Literature campaign at The Groucho. Current Latvian leters are oſten soul-searching, dealing with the crushing weight of history in the post-Soviet era. So what beter place to celebrate than a venue where in the 1990s you might have seen a knickerless Kate Moss, or Keith Allen, stumbling out the door? The big league of Latvian authors were there, from Nora Ikstena3 to... er, other writers from Latvia. The real star of the evening was Riga Black Balsam, the Latvian national drink. It’s an acquired taste, sort of a mixture of Kentucky moonshine, blackcurrant and engine oil. “It’s like medicine,” one Latvian poet laughed as I tried to chug one down. “It can protect you from colds, flu and nerve agents.” ×
If there’s something you would like to share with your old pal Horace (in the strictest confidence, naturellement...), email
horace.bent@
thebookseller.com or tweet @horacebent
Commercial
DIRECTOR OF PUBLISHER RELATIONS Emma Lowe 0362
BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER
Lara Pace 0393
CLIENT DEVELOPMENT MANAGER Gerard O’hare 0384
ACCOUNT MANAGER Emma Hare 0387
Marketing
EVENTS CO-ORDINATOR Hilary Bell 0385
EVENTS MARKETING MANAGER Briony Morgan 0386
AUDIENCE MARKETING MANAGER
Kirstine Bowen 0371 Online
WEB EDITOR AND PRODUCER Caroline Carpenter 0376
EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Francesca Pymm 0363
Production
HEAD OF CENTRAL PRODUCTION Mark Guest 0377
PRODUCTION ASSISTANT Sophie Scott-Foss 0378
CREATIVE EDITOR Danny Arter 0379
Finance
FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION CO-ORDINATOR
Anna Marzec 0390
Printed by Buxton Press Ltd, Palace Road, Buxton SK17 6AE. ISSN 0006-7539. ©2018 Bookseller Media Ltd, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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