LBF - 2

The Bookseller notes a fact about the flow of visitors to this year's London Book Fair:

Many publishers and agents have noticed an absence of Americans and Australians at this year's LBF. Peter Straus of Rogers, Coleridge & White: "It's in a different key. Fewer people are taking longer journeys: Text and Allen & Unwin are coming from Australia, but other Australian publishers are not. With some of the bigger US companies, fewer editors are coming. I also haven't heard of many people auctioning huge books at the fair."

Despite absences from further afield, European presence in London appears to be booming with exchange rates named as a prime reason. Carole Blake of Blake Friedman said: "It's going crazy. We have completely full schedules with four of us taking appointments every 30 minutes."

It will be interesting to see how this is reflected in rights sales of Nordic books to UK publishers - though the true effect is likely to be felt in the other direction, one supposes.