Tag Archives: London Book Fair

Why should editors and proofreaders attend the London Book Fair? Tips from two first-time attendees

This blog post discusses tips and impressions from two CIEP members attending the London Book Fair for the first time. Should you bother with all the seminars? Is it worth handing out business cards? And isn’t it all a bit overwhelming? Let’s hear what Aimee Hill and Andrew Hodges have to say …

Our first London Book Fair

It’s spring in the UK and the London Book Fair in early April was an energising way to start socialising in person again! This year was our first Fair, and we showed up not knowing what to expect. Even knowing how huge the event was, the size of the hall was still astonishing. Here are some tips and advice to help you navigate the event.

Aimee says …

Come with goals

Turning up to the London Book Fair with concrete goals is essential. Whether it is worth it depends entirely on what you want to get out of the Fair. And the whole event is so large and bustling that, without goals, it is very easy to wander around aimlessly staring at the rows upon rows of stands.

Find out who is visiting and meet them

Twitter is a great source for finding out who is at the Fair before you go. While I was there, I met up with some other editors I know, including Andrew Hodges, past course mates who had found themselves in the same industry, and in-house publishing people who I’d previously only chatted to on social media. It is a valuable chance to say a quick hello to connections.

Go to seminars that interest you, but don’t overdo it

The seminars throughout the event are invaluable. There are few better ways to get insight into the industry than the talks that LBF put on. If you work with independent/fiction authors, the seminars hosted at Author HQ give insight into the different concerns and interests of your clients. They are also all recorded, so you can catch up on the ones you missed and rewatch the ones you were too tired to pay attention to. Extra tip: if your goal for the Fair is just to go to these seminars, there are digital tickets that give you access to the recordings without having to trek to London.

Be emboldened to socialise

In my opinion, networking is just a fancy word for socialising. While the Fair is primarily a corporate, work-focused event, there is space for getting to know a diverse range of people across the industry. Informally, the queues for coffee are long enough that you are likely able to strike up a conversation with those around you. In a more organised sense, the Wednesday offers opportunity for drinks socials all over the fair. In particular, both the Society of Young Publishers and the Independent Publishing Guild provide space for people to get together.

Andy says …

First impressions

After all that online networking and professional development in a box room under the stairs, it felt amazing to be around people! I spent the first hour walking around grinning, dazed by all the stands and people there to discuss books. Was it smaller than usual? Was Author HQ normally three times the size? I had no idea, and I didn’t care. It felt massive and a bit ‘out of this world’.

When I described it to a friend, she said the book fair sounded like a political party conference: its core had a corporate feel, with people paying lots of money for stands … and with loads of interesting stuff happening around the edges.

There was a traditional publishing crowd brokering deals in a part of the Fair we weren’t allowed to access. I got a small taste of this when I met a representative from a German publisher promoting titles to be considered for translation into English.

The logistics

If you have a long train journey to get there, two days will probably be enough. Don’t forget to bring water and preferably a packed lunch. Chairs for visitors are in short supply, and as Aimee points out, while you can sit down to watch all the interesting talks, don’t overdo them as you may end up feeling fatigued!

Where should editors hang out?

Well, that depends on your goals. If you want to network with publishers, there are loads of stands to visit. My favourite place was Author HQ, where the indie authors were mostly hanging out. There were great talks on energising the writing process, publishing successes with Amazon KDP, and on making UK publishing less London-centric.

My experience in book translation inspired me to hop over to the literary translation centre too. Broadly speaking, the translators felt closer to academia and activism, while the indie author crowd were more entrepreneurial. Despite their differences, both crowds were bursting with creativity and a love of books!

ALLi’s tenth birthday party was a highlight, where I chatted with several indie authors. I learnt a lot about the relative merits of different publishing services and by the end of the evening we were discussing reversals and character development in short stories.

I was sad the CIEP didn’t have a stall at the Fair this year, but the pandemic is far from over and the decision to wait was sensible. I bumped into Alison Shakspeare and got chatting to Aimee Hill over coffee, and it was good to know there were other CIEP members there.

Is it worth it?

Was the LBF an investment that will bring me a return? In the narrow sense, I have no idea, and that’s not why I went. My reason for attending was to get to know and understand how publishing works a bit better. This wider-picture perspective will inform my future edits and interactions with publishers and indie clients.

And that’s why you should go – at least once.

The Fair has given me a taste for in-person events now, and a new-found energy. Next up is Cymera in June – bring it on!

About Aimee Hill

Aimee Hill supports independent authors with communicative line editing. She primarily works with science fiction and fantasy authors.

About Andrew Hodges

Andrew Hodges runs an editorial business called The Narrative Craft in Edinburgh, UK. He loves line-editing fiction and ethnography and enjoys chatting with science fiction and fantasy authors about worldbuilding and point of view issues whenever he can.

 

 

About the CIEP

The Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) is a non-profit body promoting excellence in English language editing. We set and demonstrate editorial standards, and we are a community, training hub and support network for editorial professionals – the people who work to make text accurate, clear and fit for purpose.

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Photo credits: wall of books by Eugenio Mazzone on Unsplash, London Book Fair by Andrew Hodges.

Posted by Harriet Power, CIEP information commissioning editor.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the CIEP.

BookMachine: three benefits for editors and proofreaders

By Laura Summers

I run BookMachine, a thriving community for publishing professionals. We have been running for nearly nine years now and we pride ourselves on our ability to connect the people who actually make publishing happen. If you are looking to work on new projects and be at the forefront of the industry, then BookMachine is for you.

BookMachine logo

Here are three ways we can help you.

1. Access to book fairs

Traditionally, book fairs were the land of rights and editorial professionals – those negotiating over the finer points of a book sale. Starting at 8am, and often finishing in the early evening, fairs were a time to discuss upcoming titles for sale and meet potential partners from all over the world.

This is still at the heart of a book fair; however, there is a lot happening these days that can also benefit the rest of us – and that includes copy-editors and proofreaders. Over 25,000 publishing professionals will attend the London Book Fair next week and it is free to attend for BookMachine members. There is a packed seminar programme designed to provide knowledge, tools and insight for everyone working in the industry; and a host of opportunities to meet interesting industry professionals.

BookMachine always organise an informal event on the Wednesday afternoon – an opportunity for professionals to meet each other and relax after a day of meetings or seminars.

In the evening, we work in partnership with the London Book Fair team and host the Global Gathering, the goal of which is to help international visitors and UK publishers to meet and mingle, again in an informal setting.

2. Industry knowledge from your desk

If alongside your work, you crave knowledge, ideas and personal development, then you can access our knowledge base for free.

Like the SfEP blog, we aim to enhance the lives of our community. Unlike the SfEP blog, we don’t write exclusively for editors and proofreaders. The site collates articles divided into six channels – tech, design, editorial, marketing, business and audio. If you work in editorial, please don’t just read the editorial channel. The idea is to encourage people in different departments to work together. All the blog posts have been designed to help us do this.

We have been curating industry insights on the blog for such a long time that, whatever you are interested in finding out, we should have the answers for you. However, as an editor, if you can’t find a question answered, or think you have a better angle on one of our ideas – please let us know. We are an industry site, and although our expert Editorial Board keep us informed, there are always going to be niche areas we could all learn more about.

3. Industry knowledge on a night out

Early on in our own publishing careers we identified that many events for publishers are really quite formal and expensive. Unless an employer or client offers to pay for this, it can be quite prohibitive. We knew so many people wanting to learn more – but on their own terms, from their own pocket and in order to boost their own careers. This drove us to create events which are accessible to everyone (although we know we need to venture out of London more).

People gathered at a BookMachine event, in front of a neon sign saying 'Shhh.... it's a library'

Since 2010 we have hosted over 100 events for these people who actually make publishing happen, and in 2019 our event series BookMachine Unplugged is back to offer even more insight. There will be six informal events, each of which will zoom in on a vital area of the publishing industry and feature three expert speakers. Each evening has been programmed by an Editorial Board member and has been designed to inspire you with real insights into what is working in publishing right now. The events aren’t expensive to attend (£10 or free for BookMachine members) and we guarantee that editors and proofreaders will learn something interesting and meet someone new.

 

Laura SummersLaura Summers co-founded BookMachine in 2010, initially as an informal way for publishers to meet each other at events, and then as a popular site for anyone building a publishing career. The team have now organised over 100 events. In 2017 she launched BookMachine Works, a creative events and marketing agency, specialising in the publishing industry. Laura has spoken about events and publishing at the Frankfurt Book Fair, the London Book Fair, IPG Digital Quarterly, the Galley Club, BIC battles, Women in Publishing and the SYP conference.

Posted by Abi Saffrey, SfEP blog coordinator.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the SfEP.

So, what is editorial excellence…? We asked visitors to London Book Fair 2017 to tell us.

The whirlwind that is London Book Fair is over for another year. We are very grateful to LBF for again giving us the opportunity to exhibit at the fair. We wanted not only to spread the word about the SfEP in general, but also to push our message that editing does matter. Which raises the question of what good editing looks like.

We ran a competition* inviting fair attendees to tell us what ‘editorial excellence’ means to them. We had a mixed bag of responses, but with some common themes. Here are some of them:

Do you agree with them all? It’s interesting to note that entries from some of the publishing students and those newer to the profession have a common theme of ‘going above and beyond’ and producing error-free work, whereas those from more experienced hands focus on retaining the author’s voice and balancing the demands of the process.

Perhaps that experience is telling. Learning how to be a good editor takes time. It very much involves acquiring and nourishing our sense of what and when not to change. As editors and proofreaders, we all want our work to be error-free (and cringe when we let through a blooper), but what would ‘perfection’ look like? Often one person’s notion of what is ‘right’ is quite different from another’s. Our job, perhaps, is not to impose our picture of perfection but to get to know what our client’s picture looks like.

Ian Howe presented a seminar for us called ‘Editing matters – doesn’t it?’ This was met with great enthusiasm by a packed room. He gave us some good examples of when not to change, proving that there’s more to editing and proofreading than just knowing the ‘rules’ of grammar and being able to spot typos. To apostrophe or not to apostrophe, that was the question. (The answer is yes if it’s King’s Cross, but no if it’s Barons Court. You just have to know that. Or know when to look something up.)

It’s a tricky business this editing malarkey, isn’t it? It’s just these sorts of questions that we’ll be exploring further at our annual conference from 16–18 September, Context is key: Why the answer to most questions is ‘It depends’. Booking is open now, and there’s an early-bird rate until 28 April. But don’t ponder too long – our conference places usually sell out fast!

*Congratulations to Sophie Eminson, whose name was drawn as the winner from our competition entries. She wins a complete set of SfEP guides.

Margaret HunterMargaret Hunter is the marketing and PR director of the SfEP. She works as an editor and proofreader as Daisy Editorial, and particularly likes helping independent authors with business guides, memoirs and general non-fiction. She loves taming Word’s styles and templates.

 

Publishers, pigeons and German knitting: musings on the London Book Fair

By Margaret Hunter

As many of you will know (at least avid forum readers), I recently ran an SfEP stand at the London Book Fair, ably assisted by a crack team of volunteer members. Was it worth it? Only time will tell in terms of actual new joiners and new clients using our services, but my overall impression is yes!

New members? New clients?

SfEP stand at London Book Fair 2016Being a publisher-focused event – and more than that, being a very sales-focused event – I feared we might have many visits from people who wanted to sell us their latest gizmo or whizzy program, or indeed bend our ears about their authorial masterpiece. We did get a couple of those visits, but thankfully not too many.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that most of our conversations were meaningful and productive. I was particularly pleased that we had a pretty even mix of visitors: people working as editors or proofreaders (or wanting to) who were looking for support, and also publishers and authors looking for good professional help. There is a need for us!

The in-person contact gave us the chance to talk through people’s questions about joining, upgrading and training, as well as show off the benefits of membership, including participation in the forums and local groups, and these were met with enthusiasm. Look out for potential new joiners visiting your local group to ‘try before they buy’!

Publishers and authors, as potential clients, were very pleased to hear of our directory and we showed lots of people how to use it. Many expressed appreciation of the fact that everyone in our directory has had to show certain levels of competence and experience to attain their grade of membership, which goes to show that it’s well worth upgrading as soon as you can. Clients are desperate to find a reliable source of good editors and proofreaders in the murky sea of internet listings.

So that’s what editors do

Of course, we had many interesting discussions on the value of proofreading and editing and how the process works. One self-publishing author asked whether it was really worth having his book edited as he’s already listed it on Amazon and it is selling. He went on to answer his own question by revealing that the reviews he has received so far are all along the lines of ‘Good book. Shame about the typos’.

It was enlightening for him to hear about what we editors actually do. When I mentioned that a lot of the job is about consistency checks his response went something like this: ‘Oh, so you take care of all of that? Wow! I could have done with that service for my last book.’ I asked him why. He explained that a friend had read his book and really liked it, then asked: ‘But what happened to the body in the park?’ One for the good fiction editor’s checklist, I think!

That can’t be Margaret!

Aptly named editors Sentance and Shakspeare

Shakspeare and Sentance

The Fair was also an opportunity to get to know some other SfEP members better, and I was able to share information about SfEP that some didn’t know. As well as those who helped to run the stand, other members popped by to say hello. At one point we had two very aptly named editors on hand.

It was great to hear about what other editors and proofreaders do in their businesses and to share their stories, instructive as well as funny. And you learn the most interesting things when you speak to editorial professionals. For example, I found out that there is a ‘German way’ of knitting that’s visibly noticeable to those in the know. That’s the sort of ‘useful fact’ that comes out in group and forum discussions that editors can tuck away in the hope that one day it will come in handy.

Meeting in person those so far encountered only virtually can, however, be a revelation. When I was deep in conversation with a stand visitor I was pointed out to one of our number. ‘But that can’t be Margaret!’ came the response. ‘I thought she was tall!’ [I’m not – you know who you are ;-)]

But what about the pigeon, I hear you ask. Well, I think she just came for the biscuits.

Visitng pigeon at LBF16Many thanks to our lovely members who gave time and enthusiasm to help run the stand: Josephine Bacon, Alex Boon, Piers Cardon, John Firth, Jane Hammett, Anya Hastwell, Mary Hobbins, Richard Hutchinson, Liz Jones, Jackie Mace, Rene Nel, Peter Norrington, Alison Shakspeare, Richard Sheehan, Wendy Toole, Jeremy Toynbee, Alison Walters.

Margaret HunterMargaret Hunter is a freelance copy-editor, proofreader and formatter and is the SfEP’s marketing and PR director.

daisyeditorial.co.uk | facebook.com/daisyeditorial | @daisyeditorial

sfep.org.uk/directory/daisy-editorial

 

Posted by Tracey Roberts, SfEP blog coordinator.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the SfEP