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Walking to the Press Centre in Hall 6.2 for the first time during set-up on Monday, two things struck me. First, the capacious Press Centre was slightly smaller than last year and second, the adjacent LIterary Agents & Scouts Centre (LitAg) area for literary agents appeared to be larger.
My first impression was correct. This year’s LitAg centre is 5 per cent larger than last year, with over 500 agents from 300 companies situated there this year. And the journalists are having to make way.
One agent new to LitAg this year was experienced Australian agent Sheila Drummond of The Drummond Agency, who had received funding from the Australia Council for the Arts to have a table this year. Drummond was grateful for the assistance:
‘Being an agent in Australia can be quite tough unless you have some big-name authors,’ she told me, as she prepared for the first of 50 scheduled appointments. That sounds like a lot, but many agents and rights managers have many more. Drummond says the number is deliberate: ‘if you leave some gaps in the schedule you can make room for the unexpected opportunities that may occur during the week.’
Drummond’s big hope for the week is a gentle, character-based mystery novel set in a newspaper office in 1950s Scotland. It’s a book aimed directly at heart of the 50+ female reader and Drummond has already had interest from the US.
I should add one thing: in the Centre’s 30th year, two things haven’t changed about LitAg: it’s still tough to talk your way in (’I have an appointment with Andrew Wylie - honestly!’), and leaving its sedate and perfumed avenues of tables for Frankfurt’s noisy, frenetic exhibition halls is always a moment marked with a slight regret.
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