Oh yes:
I want to fast forward you for a few moments to the end of the day. My Noumena Fantastica today came courtesy of West Brompton station, where I stood, panting as I'd run for the train, in the blistering heat of this afternoon. When you're running in a suit and heels you barely have time to take in your surroundings so I arrived, kerfuffled - but in one piece - on the platform to the train home, three minutes left before the train arrived. I caught my breath and a small breeze picked up across the platform, serving both the purpose of cooling my brow and scattering blossoms from the wild-trees opposite the platform across the tracks. All of a sudden the wind smelt of summer and the day that'd happened to me sunk in.
(So rewind)
Today I had the honour of attending day two of the London Book Fair.
To prove this statement, here's a picture of me looking pleased with myself at the Myriad stall:
There is literally no way to put across the excitement of the London Book Fair in words. It's expansive, spiralling through all the available space of Earls Court with a low chatter; a hubbub of important deals being negotiated. Tables everywhere, suits and badges in badge holders, uncorrected proofs by the bucketload. Ipads, tablets, Iphones and a hundred different languages only some of which I know. All united by one single passion: books. There's literally every type you can think of here: fiction, non-fiction, graphic novels, atlases, apps, interactive media, text books, translations, kids books. At one point I even walk past a stall selling Harry Potter brand merchandise: lit subtly with backlights, making the whole thing seem mysterious and ethereal.
Myriad have a table at G455, at the edge of our distributors Turnaround. Here we are, hard at work. Here's also a sneak peak of Isabel Ashdown's "Hurry Up and Wait" cover, for the keen eyed! If any of my audience out there are reading this by chance, and happen to be at the book fair tomorrow come say hello! We do love a chat:
Aside from the tables and deals being made, the London Book Fair also runs seminars for eager eyed Interns such as myself to gobble up. I managed to get to three of these today, the first being "Apps And What They Do For Consumer Publishers", the second being "The Tweet Smell of Success?" and the third being "Film Adaptation: Review of the basics and what the future holds."
All of these were exceptionally informative and an honour to be present at, but a special mention here goes to the "Tweet Smell of Success?" seminar - so popular that most of us ended up huddled by the (open) doors listening in! A strange sense of solidarity develops in this hour between me and a flurry of editors, students and booksellers; notes are passed between each other, someone caught a name someone else didn't, or a spelling that somebody else forgot. You can listen to the podcast on the Oxford Brookes website when it's available (and yes, someone did Tweet them whilst we were listening. Drop into the P-Cast to hear what they said!).
I make furious notes at all, most of which I'm transcribing as we speak.
Tomorrow (and tomorrow, and tomorrow) I'm going back to this world of bright words and glaring, hyper-interactive, hyper-exciting content. Expect another blog post in awe of the Book Fair. One thing's for certain; you definitely can't keep the written word down.
Love and cherry-blossom,
Nicola
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