A busy coda to an extraordinary week. We were in central London yesterday and today for the first sales conference with Bloomsbury. Just before doing our presentation we met Anthony Grayling in a drawing room of the English Speaking Union building, and had a long chat ranging from digital publishing to the bestselling historical romances written by his wife Katie Hickman (who apparently is huge in Italy) to the exploits and mishaps of one of our authors whose name I will not mention as he is an occasional reader of my blog.
After the presentation we walked back to Bloomsbury's HQ with Bill Swainson, stopped for a quick drink at a pub near Soho Square and attended a lovely authors' party, where we were delighted to meet Howard Jacobson and Stephen Kelman (author of Pigeon English – check this one out, it's going to be a winner when it's released in March 2011) and see our old friend Paul Bailey, whose latest book – Chapman's Odyssey – will be published by Bloomsbury next January. I also had the honour to meet Nigel Newton and meet most of the editorial staff of Bloomsbury. After that, dinner at Bertorelli with the reps – a happy, enthusiastic bunch of people. I am sure they'll do well with our lists.
Today, back to the English Speaking Union for another session with the reps. We are absolutely spent and look forward to the weekend. I have just seen a wonderful review of our Decameron in the latest issue of the TLS – the cherry on the cake to an amazing week!
AG
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