The London Book Fair 2013

This year’s London Book Fair was my first experience of the world famous event; I was lucky enough to spend two days at the fair, one accompanying a publisher, and one as a student. The experience allowed me to examine the recent developments in the industry from two different, but equally interesting, perspectives.

I spent the first day accompanying a publisher’s digital department, and sitting in on their meetings with a number of major eBook distributors. An issue that came up in each meeting was whether the distributor had plans to produce a device that will read ePub3; an eBook format which supports JavaScript, and which would enable the publisher to create interactive eBooks. This question was generally answered with another question: ‘When will you be selling ePub3 eBooks?’ This chicken-and-egg scenario suggests that the world of digital publishing is still finding its feet; nobody is sure how much to invest in this new phenomenon.

I spent the second day looking around the book fair with fellow students, and had more time to explore the different stands and seminars. I realised that the digital section was large, whilst there were very few printers present.  This is a strong indication of how much presence the digital world currently has in the publishing industry. I also took note of the major campaign of this year’s book fair, ‘Books are my Bag’, the aim of which is to encourage people to buy physical books from bookshops, and to help prolong the life of this experience.

It was interesting to be in one room which completely encapsulated the prominent standpoints in the industry at the moment. Some are embracing the inevitable change and trying to get ahead of it, whilst others are trying to encourage people to cling on to tradition.