London Book Fair

A book fair sounds romantic to people who love to read.

It's anything but.

Last week I was at Olympia for the London Book Fair.

The building is spectacular – but the event rarely matches it.

Long lines for coffee, few places to sit beyond the floor, over-priced food … and thousands upon thousands of publishers from around the world.

But it's hardly a cauldron of creativity. Most of the time, marketers are talking about selling rights. Some publishers don't even bother to send their editors along.

Like every year, I thought it would probably be my last LBF.

But it's only 30 minutes from my front door, I had a few meetings with ghostwriting agencies and other ghostwriters, and I bumped into a couple of dozen friends from the last three decades in publishing.

That made it well worth turning up.