By now the worldwide financial damage caused by a cloud of volcanic ash that began closing down European air space on May 15th, 2010 is well-known. The publishing industry was greatly affected when the plans of numerous publishers, booksellers, literary agents, librarians, media and industry suppliers from over 100 countries to attend the London Book Fair were disrupted.
Strategic Book Group’s American staff wasn’t able to attend the London Book Fair because of airspace closures over Europe. Fortunately we had two contacts from the London area scheduled to assist us during the Fair. Annie Nicholas, joined by Linda Edwards and Deanne Dagley, carried on beautifully serving our authors who managed to get to the Fair and represent their books. These three women did a fantastic job making sure the scheduled authors were able to carry though with their plans in spite of travel problems caused the volcano.
What makes their efforts even more special is that Annie and Linda are authors, and Deanne is the very supportive wife of author David Dagley. Annie and Strategic’s exposition manager Nancie Liles stayed in contact by phone and email in an effort to keep prior plans and arrangements on schedule. We are grateful for the professional way they represented Strategic Book Group and its authors in London.
How did the London Book Fair 2010 turn out as a whole? On the second day of the Fair The Bookseller News Team for The Bookseller Daily reported
‘Travel chaos will not stop publisher and agents from conducting business...’. However it was estimated that about half of the meetings set for international publishers didn’t take place because of travel difficulties.
Having a reduced number of Fair attendees meant that getting attention to our booth was imperative. Strategic Book Marketing’s team of publicists work with authors who sign up to appear with us during expositions and instruct them on how to promote themselves. The authors who managed to make it to the London Book Fair 2010 took those instructions to heart.
For starters, David Weakly turned his car into a billboard and drove it about before finally parking it in a promant spot outside the center.
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| Thomas Green's "Butterfly in a Glass Bottle" proudly on display. |
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Likewise Jacqui Vittles (author of
Dyslexia - An Amazing Discovery)
sparkled in her corner spot, what a
fantastic lady. |
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Igor Ferluga (author of Shadows of the
Nephilim) displayed an absolutely fabulous
attitude and no fear, masses of interest in
his book and he did exactly the right thing
after we talked things through. |
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Lynda Cookson (author of Tea 'n Turps),
was wonderfully upbeat, again lots of
interest; her work has a broad appeal --
and she brought masses of goodies to give
away, mugs, tees etc. |
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Alexander Jackman (author of I Am) had quite a
presence and garnered a lot of attention for his
novel. |
There were far too many things going on in Strategic Book Group’s booth at K-175 for us to describe here. To see photographs of the books on display and our wonderful authors in action, visit the photo album
HERE.
Once the London Book Fair 2010 officially ended, Strategic’s exposition staff began the tasks of following up on leads obtained during the Book Fair as well as making contacts with those we were in contact with before the event who were not keep scheduled meeting appointments because of travel cancellations.
We are now moving forward with BookExpo America to be held in New York City beginning May 25th, and we’ve been told that much of the business that did not happen in London is expected to take place in New York. There’s also a lot of talk about the foreign markets who had invested so much in this year’s LBF are taking additional resources to Germany for the Frankfurt Book Fair scheduled for October. Strategic Book Group will be there, and we hope you can join us.
Please contact us at bookexpoLori@strategicbookmarketing.com with inquiries about book expositions Strategic Book Group will participate in.
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