Follow the adventures of Penguin operatives over the next few days as they pit their wits against the might of the international publishing and agenting community at the 2007 Frankfurt Book Fair. Day Three and Agent X thinks he is judging America's Top Model...
Frankfurt is a little like the Eurovision Song Contest – publishers dress according to their national fashion, with often disastrous effect. The German men wear shocking lime green blazers, the Dutch leather caps which I last saw in San Francisco in the Castro district back in 1985, the Russians all look like gangsters with loads of bling jewellery, and the Eastern Europeans have trousers which are always two inches too short. In an industry which is so dependent on packaging, I always find it surprising how little interest publishers show in what they wear. A colleague of mine who won't hire editors who are fashion challenged because she thinks they won't be able to commission good covers, would be appalled walking around the fair. That said, I was admiring the suit of an English publisher last night and he said to me, 'oh my tailor in China made it for me'. He wasn't joking - that's the coolest thing I've heard all week.
Our Man at the Bookfair
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Great post, very amusing. You missed the Japanese publishers though, whose motherland is so profoundly obsessed with packaging. Were they the ones wandering around with each seperate limb in a foil bag, held together with plastic wrap and neatly packed in a very stylish (yet simple) box?
Posted by: Kitty | October 17, 2007 at 04:17 PM