Publishers Weekly - 09.03.2020

News

W

ith the new coronavirus

steadily spreading across

the global, Reed Exhibi-

tions spent a number of days last

week debating whether to go ahead

with the London Book Fair, which was

set to run March 10–12. After decid-

ing on March 3 that it was moving

ahead as planned, Reed canceled the

event the next day. The organizer had

defended its decision to proceed with

the fair based on a report from the

U.K. government, which issued a three-part action plan to

confront the coronavirus’s potential spread and which did

not mandate the shutdown of large events like the fair.

The decision came even as many companies and literary

WWW.PUBLISHERSWEEKLY.COM 5

As the New Coronavirus Spreads,

Conferences Suffer

agencies from different regions

pulled out of LBF. In the U.S., all Big

Five trade houses said they would

not attend, along with some other

major players that included Amazon

Publishing, Ingram Content Group,

and OverDrive. A large number of

American literary agencies also

decided not to attend, and some were

critical of Reed’s decision to proceed

with the event.

Among the agencies that canceled

was the Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency. “I am disappointed

that the LBF has not offered the rights center attendees a

refund as they did when the volcano hit,” said Jennifer Weltz

of JVNLA, referring to the eruptions in Iceland in 2010 that

Olympia Hall was to host the London Book Fair this week,

but the fair was canceled due to coronavirus concerns.

IN FOND

MEMORY OF

CLIVE

CUSSLER

ICONIC AUTHOR, FRIEND, &

UNRIVALED GRAND MASTER

OF ADVENTURE

• 1931–2020 •

PHOTOSBYLEANNA.COM

COURTESY

OF

LBF