The London Book Fair wrapped up on March 12 after three days of intense activity at the Olympia London. First-year fair director Emma Lowe said 2026 attendance was “overall strong”—the event welcomed 1,005 exhibitors and more than 33,000 visitors—but was slightly impacted by travel difficulties among Middle Eastern, Indian, and Australian attendees as a result of the ongoing conflict in Iran.

“The past few days have felt really buzzy and busy, and the feedback has been that people have been able to do good business,” Lowe said.

David Steinberger, CEO of Open Road Integrated Media, concurred. “The mood at this year’s fair felt energetic,” he noted. “The market feels generally healthy, but people are excited about new books, new ideas.”

Unsurprisingly, one of the hot topics at the fair was next year’s move to a new venue: Excel, across town in the Docklands. Reactions, so far, have been “very positive,” Lowe said. To ease the transition, the LBF is hosting monthly tours of the grounds and has also produced virtual tours. It’s also working closely with the Association of American Publishers and the U.K.’s Association of Authors’ Agents to keep exhibitors informed.

LBF primarily serves as a venue for the rights trade for English-language books and is a bellwether of what the world wants to read—and this year was no different. “Everyone is looking for positive books and publishing more positive books,” said Karen Brochu, publisher of the Toronto-based House of Anansi Press. “It’s nice to be hearing about and pitching books that have a happy ending, positive outcomes, and uplifting narratives.”

Anne Messitte, president of Zibby Media, echoed this sentiment, pointing out interest in John Kenny’s novel I See You’ve Called in Dead, about a middle-aged obituary writer who accidentally posts his own obit online and can’t be fired because his boss thinks he’s dead. Messitte said the book has “broad appeal,” noting that foreign rights have sold in Germany and South Korea.

Jake Bauman, SVP for Literary Development at Sony Pictures Entertainment, said there was no obvious breakout title that everyone in film and TV had to have. “The conversation feels more fragmented: fan-driven IP and books coming out of the self-publishing pipeline remain a major focal point, while upmarket commercial book club fiction continues to be the dominant lane agents are pitching, with plenty of comps to recent hits like Broken Country and The Wedding People.” Scouts and editors also noted a growing appetite for translated fiction in the English-language market.

Brad Rose, VP of content strategy at digital library platform Hoopla, said his visits to LBF were essential to inform him on international markets. “Libraries around the world are having a hard time with budgets, so we want to maximize the value we can bring them,” he noted. “The best way to learn what’s available and to find out what people want is by meeting people in person, which is what the fair provides.”

The fair’s most divisive moment came when Keith Riegert, president of the Stable Book Group and CEO of Ulysses Press and VeloPress Books, remarked during a panel on AI and the industry that “anyone who isn’t AI literate is probably unemployable.” Riegert later told PW, “I don’t take pleasure in saying that. I see the human cost AI may have on our industry and it terrifies me. I’m trying to encourage people to prepare themselves.”

The fair also saw one major anti-AI protest, organized by 10,000 authors against AI firms training LLMs on their work without permission or payment. The authors displayed and distributed an empty book titled Don’t Steal This Book, which contained only their names.

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The best way to learn what’s available and what people want is by meeting people in person.
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One area where AI is having an immediate impact is in audiobooks and translations. Roland Glasser, who translates from French to English, said that while literary translation “should be immune from the impact of AI, at least for a while,” the technology has deprived him of “all the high-paying supplementary work—like translating travel guides for luxury brands or advertising materials—that gives me the financial flexibility to focus on the literary work.”

But the publishing community remains resilient in the face of change, as evidenced by this year’s LBF. “We’re grateful for everyone who came,” Lowe said. “We don’t take it for granted. And we look forward to next year, when we hope the fair will be even better.”