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Events London Book Fair

London Book Fair 2017

This year’s London Book Fair was a totally different experience for me than last year’s. I had my baby daughter with me this year, but at least I could trundle her in a buggy instead of schlepping her around in my belly! As I said in my blog post for Help For Writers, I conducted several meetings sitting on the floor, but I think most authors appreciated the fact that I don’t stand on my dignity all the time. At least, I hope they did …

I wasn’t on a stand this year, either, and I enjoyed being able to roam free. Out of all my scheduled meetings there was only one person who didn’t show up at all, with no warning – and they contacted me afterwards to apologise! This made quite a change from my previous experiences in a different industry. What a nice lot you authors are! I hope to give everyone the same respect in return.

I also popped over to see the folks on the SfEP stand – always nice to say hello and put some faces to names. 

So, what’s new in the publishing world? There was a bigger emphasis on self-publishing this year, with the expansion of the Author HQ area and more services targeted at self-publishing authors. It’s good to see that there isn’t any technology that can do the copy-editor’s job … yet! I don’t think there ever will be, but by the time I’m 90 I might be eating my words (hopefully not in paper form).

I’m conscious that I haven’t been blogging as much as usual since the sproglet was born, and I hope to get back into the groove with more regular posts. You can look forward to some tips about how best to proofread your own work. And if there’s anything specific you’d like me to cover, please contact me and let me know!

baby sitting at the start of the yellow brick road
Someone wanted to follow the yellow brick road …
Categories
Events London Book Fair

The London Book Fair 2016: Beautiful pigs & lots of colour

My first London Book Fair was an amazing* experience. It made me realise how lucky I am to work in the field of books and writing. Being surrounded by so many books – and, more importantly, people who love them – was energising.

The world of books is a colourful one. Lush displays of children’s books, coffee table books (some of which were large enough to actually be coffee tables) and art books reminded me why the industry hasn’t mirrored the music business in its rapid move from physical to digital formats. There’s something especially attractive about an origami book, a book you can scribble in, or a book that includes balsa wood. It’s also useful to own a book that you could use to knock an intruder unconscious.

 

Origami animals at London Book Fair 2016
You can’t make these out of an ebook.

 

I was there to promote Help For Writers – I’ll be writing a more detailed blog for them soon – but I couldn’t stop my enthusiasm for copy-editing from surfacing from time to time. I hope I managed to convince a few writers of the importance of a good copy-edit!

I found the the wonderful unexpected around every corner – including beautiful pigs.

 

beautiful pigs London Book Fair 2016
You never knew you wanted this book, but now you do.

 

I was honoured to take part in an Author HQ panel on ‘How to prepare for self-publishing’. I hope people found it useful. Thanks to Fiona Marsh (Midas PR) for chairing the session and to my colleague Nikki Halliwell (Marketing Executive at Help For Writers) and self-published author Will Green (Default Setting) for being on the panel with me. You can’t beat advice from someone who has ‘been there and done that’. Luckily there was only one mic between us so I couldn’t interrupt them too much.

Now it’s time to get some caffeine into my system and start the follow-up…

 

London Book Fair 2016 How to prepare for self-publishing Help For Writers panel Fiona Marsh Will Green Nikki Halliwell Catherine Dunn
Will imparts some words of wisdom on the ‘How to prepare for self-publishing’ panel. L to R: Fiona Marsh, Catherine Dunn, Will Green, Nikki Halliwell

 

(*Dipping into the thesaurus in search of a less clichéd word to replace ‘amazing’, I was confronted with the suggestions ‘shocking’ and ‘prodigious’. That, my dear reader, is why you can’t write well by following a set of rules.)