Thomas 'energised' by BolognaBooksPlus' in real life début

Jacks Thomas has been “energised and excited” by the participation levels in BolognaBooksPlus, the satellite event of the Bologna Children’s Book Fair aimed at the adult and general trade audience, which launched its first in-person event on Sunday (20th March).

BBP has 30 exhibiting companies from 26 countries and a seminar stream of 30 events over four days. Thomas was asked to launch BBP as guest director by BCBF head Elena Pasoli “literally the day after” Thomas departed from Reed Exhibitions in 2020 after leading the London Book Fair for seven years. The new adult fair is part of BCBF’s expanding portfolio which includes its Licensing Trade Fair and the Shanghai International Children’s Book Fair, the latter of which it co-organises. She is joined at BBP by head of marketing Orna O’Brien who worked alongside Thomas as LBF’s conferences manager.

Thomas said: “I thought about it a lot but it was an exciting proposition. Bologna is so well established as the international children’s fair, but there are publishers who have to choose one fair per year. So to give them the opportunity to sell general rights as well seemed like something that was definitely worth exploring. And the idea was to use that base of Bologna’s reputation in children’s, illustration and design as something to build on.”

BBP’s seminars kicked off with a pre-fair rights conference on Sunday, and a self-publishing stream on the first full day of BCBF (21st). There is a focus on successful agenting today (22nd) and BBP ends with a number of translation events on 23rd March. There is an additional strand on design, with a “Jackets Off” exhibition which showcases cover design for the same titles across the world. Participants throughout the four days include LBA founder Luigi Bonomi, Midas PR c.e.o. Jason Bartholomew, IPA president Bodour Al Qasimi and author Michèle Roberts. 

Due to pandemic restrictions, BBP’s scheduled first outing last year was turned into a “soft launch” virtual programme which, Thomas said, was “a great experiment and some parts were wildly successful”. She added: “I was as exhausted afterwards as I was for a physical fair. But it is very nice to be back in person. I applaud Frankfurt for getting back to real life last year, as there was almost a psychological barrier to cross of getting to your first post-pandemic event. I say ‘post-pandemic’ hopefully as I think we have learned a huge degree of humility around that.”