Coming to an End...again

I feel like my life is made up of a few three-to-four day periods at a time, and sadly this, one of the better three day periods, comes to an end later today.  But, as it's not ended yet, and I still need to recap yesterday, I'm not yet ready to call it the end, just coming to it.

Yesterday, the second day of London Book Fair 2009, was another one full of great traffic, lots of meetings and lots of inquiries to the New Title Showcase.  Aside from the exhibits I'm working, lots of "future of publishing" and "next big market" discussions were had.  I can only speak for me, but I'm getting a big impression that although India is the Country of Honour here this year, The Arab World is still the buzz.  They're still striking up a lot of conversations--even one's that they're not actually involved in--and while a lot of people seem to be sold on India as one of the next great English Language markets, the Arab World is still an unexplored territory that a lot of people are happy and excited to explore.

Aside from official business, I spent a lot of my day yesterday doing things surrounding the Society of Young Publishers here in the UK.  I've spent at least six months trying to conjure up something similar in the states (with lots and lots of help of course), but we've so far just had a few ideas.  However, yesterday I was re-energized not just from the great stuff fed to us by the SYP, but also by the few American's there that are pumped to start something similar as well.  (I should not that the AAP has a group for Young Publishers that is just great!..but it doesn't meet the needs of many of the people I've met around the world).  The SYP also hosted an event that they call Cannon Tales, which is a series of publishing professionals sharing their stories in different ways.  Last night's stories were told with pictures.  Each presenter had 7 minutes to tell their story using different pictures that remained on the screen for 21 seconds each.  It was awesome...

...and so has been LBF!!