With the London Book Fair concluded, the attention of many American publishing industry members is shifting from worries on how to get to the fair to what can be done to compensate for lost meetings and appointments. Michael Campbell, v-p sales and marketing at becker & meyer!, said the Bellevue, Wash.-based publisher and packager will send a "larger than usual contingent to New York for BEA." B&M staff will also be in New York Monday through Friday of BEA week (the show days are Wednesday and Thursday with a day of education Tuesday), to make appointments outside of show days.
Indeed, BEA, which like LBF is owned by Reed Exhibitions, seems to be the major beneficiary of the volcanoe-plagued LBF. Event manager Steve Rosato said he began receiving requests over the weekend from publishers and agents looking for move exhibit space or additional tables in the rights center and requests have continued into the week. "People seem to say ‘what's the next thing I can do' and it's BEA." The exhibit floor will be open May 26-27.
OverDrive will be bringing more people to BEA than originally planned to make up for the 50 meetings it missed in London, president Steve Potash said. The company will have a booth on the exhibit floor as well as in the IDPF Digital Zone. Potash said he is also planning to take a trip to London next week to meet with publishers.
Dr. Jan Yager, author and foreign rights representative, as well as director of rights for the independent publishing company Hannacroix Creek Books, Inc. is rebooking the 49 appointments she was forced to cancel for BookExpo as well as Frankfurt. In addition to using phone calls and e-mail to make new appointments, Yager is using Skype over the next week to present titles and/or catalogues, that would have been shared in person at the fair.
