India Hands Over the Baton to South Africa at the London Book Fair and Arthur Attwell is IYPEY Runner Up
Alert! Twitter and Facebook are reporting that it’s official: India has handed South Africa the baton at the London Book Fair and SA now takes centre stage as the Fair’s new market focus country for the 2010 event.
HSRC Press marketing manager Karen Bruns posted this note to her Facebook profile from London a short while ago: “[Am] pleased – while wondering what’s happening at home with the ballot-counting – that India has handed over to South Africa for the 2010 London Book Fair and the work can now begin in earnest.”
The announcement of South Africa as the market focus for LBF 2010 was actually made in July – and repeated in September – but a press release is a far cry from public affirmation in front of the world’s publishers.
Says the LBF, “The Market Focus programme, now in its sixth year, was first created in 2004 for LBF to draw attention to certain countries and highlight the trade links with this territory, its publishing industry and the opportunities for conducting business with the rest of the world.” South Africa is sandwiched between India in 2009 and Russia in 2011 – countries rather significantly larger than ours, giving some indication of the significance of being “in focus” at the Fair.
In other LBF news from Facebook and Twitter, Michelle Matthews reports that her husband Arthur Attwell, of Electric Book Works, was the runner-up in the International Young Publishing Entrepreneur of the Year (IYPEY) stakes. Said Matthews:
“Arthur is IYPEY 2009 Runner-Up: I don’t think they’ve had a runner-up before, must have been a close contest…”
Colombia’s Andrés Barragán of Puntoaparte pipped Attwell to the post. To read more about IYPEY 2009, click here.
Congrats to Arthur and EBW!
Apr
