From the Frankfurt Book Fair

Science Factory Director Peter Tallack (left) and yours truly

Hallo from Germany—as mentioned last week, I won’t be able to do a full post this week because I’m at the Frankfurt Book Fair. (Though let’s be honest, that selfie could have been taken anywhere. The interiors of convention halls are like a parallel universe where nations and cultures cease to exist, replaced by carpeted concrete, wifi, and plastic-wrapped sandwiches. I’m now a citizen of Hall 4.2.)

I sort of take these fairs for granted at this point, but I realized you might be curious what I’ve been up to this week—what exactly do I do at these book fairs, and more important, how does it fit into your book’s journey?

There’s a whole world out there . . . or so I’m told

There is a whole miniature world humming along at book fairs: author panels and signings, Epcott-inspired publisher stands chock-full of books and posters and catalogs and publishing professionals, occasional free snacks, and (if you keep a sharp eye out) sometimes even free booze.

I don’t see any of that. (OK, once or twice per fair I might, when I have a 15-minute window where I can do a bit of wandering.) Instead, I sit at this table below with my colleagues and our latest rights list, eight hours per day over four days, and try to convince international publishers that they should sign up translation rights to my authors’ books.

If the book doesn’t exist yet, I instead ask publishers if they’d like to read the marvelous book proposal that was snapped up by this or that US/UK publisher already. If the book proposal doesn’t exist yet, I tell them that I’m working on this terrific book idea with a future rock-star author, and if they’d like they can be one of the first people to read the proposal once it’s ready.

If the idea isn’t quite solidified yet, I keep my mouth shut.

To be fair (oof, sorry), the experience isn’t nearly as grim as I just made it sound. I love meeting folks from around the world and talking books, I love geeking out about the authors I represent, and we’ve got padded chairs and coffee trolleys and snacks. Plus, there’s the contact high of being at the center of a mustering of publishing people. Much of the business of publishing is done in writing (the end result is a written book, after all), so often I feel a bit isolated, working away in my own bubble. The literal buzz of hundreds of simultaneous conversations at the fairs reconnects me to the larger publishing community in the most visceral, human way possible.

All right, that’s all for now—I’ve drafted most of this post in advance, but I’m guessing at this point my voice is nearly gone and I’m subsisting on tea, honey, and aspirin. See you next week!