London Book Fair

This week I was lucky enough to be invited to join the Search Press team on their stand at The London Book Fair. It's not really what you would call work, because it was such a pleasure chatting to people, and then restacking the books on the shelves when it got a bit untidy - I had a fabulous day!

The Show itself is absolutely huge - almost as big as a small village - filled with anybody and everybody in the world of publishing including all the very well known publishing houses.  It was also amazing to see the range of publishers out there, targeting all sorts of markets.  The nicest area to wander around was definitely the children's section. I noticed a huge variety of accents as I wandered around - the Show has a lovely international quality as it attracts visitors from around the world, and I was thrilled to meet with publishers from a good selection of countries.

My Cats and Kittens book has now been translated into 5 languages! Astonishing to believe that this has happened in the year since the last Book Fair when it was first shown, and I can now count knitters in Denmark, Netherlands, Germany, Russia and Italy amongst my customers.

This year, with my Dogs and Puppies book due to be launched in June, we were approached by Danish (Turbine) and Dutch (Librero) publishers as well as one from Ireland who was interested in a book of Irish Knits - which gave me plenty to think about. Though I must say right now that I won't be designing any knitted leprechauns or shamrocks . . .

I had the opportunity to look around to see what is new in the world of textile and handmade crafts, and though there were lots of other publishers offering crafty books, I must admit that I didn't see anything that I got really excited about. There was certainly an increase in sewing books this year - due to the enormous success of The Great British Sewing Bee I think. There were also some lovely craft books for children which I made a mental note of. I think my ten year old daughter would love some of them.

I managed to escape for lunch at a lovely Pizzeria in West Brompton with a good friend of mine, Karen who was also attending the Show (and is a real author!) which broke the day up and gave us the chance for a good old catch up. By the time the day was nearing an end, my feet were begging me to sit down and I was imagining a nice, relaxing journey home on the train. Oh dear - I ended up standing up, squashed amongst commuters for most of the way, my feet complaining bitterly and worst of all - no chance to do any knitting!