Mushens Entertainment Attends London Book Fair 2026
This week, the Mushens Entertainment team attended the 2026 London Book Fair, in what will be the Olympia venue’s final outing, with the biggest event in the UK book calendar moving to ExCeL in 2027.
For those unfamiliar with the London Book Fair, the event is held annually in March, and comprises of three days of seminars, conferences, talks and meetings, with agents, publishers and authors gathering from all corners of the world to talk about books. Writing them, making them, publishing and selling them.
The Mushens Entertainment team arrived early on Tuesday to set up our stand across three tables in the International Rights Centre. With a selection of our books on display, together with some advanced reader copies (ARCs), and our signature hot pink Foreign Rights Guides ready for distribution, the team set about meeting with agents and publishers to discuss rights and options for our incredible list of authors, including deals and negotiations for many of our new and upcoming titles.
A typical day at the fair is made up of short 30-minute meetings (a little like speed dating), where our agents rapidly pitch books from both our frontlist and backlist; anything that they think may be a good fit for the co-agent, publisher, or film/TV executive. If the response is positive, we then send manuscripts or page proofs out, often with additional information such as the rights and territories available, publisher plans or quote sheets.
Our incredible Foreign Rights team at Mushens Entertainment work tirelessly with our agents in the lead up to the fair, and then more-so during the three days on site, to secure international deals for both new title and previously published books from our diverse list of clients.
Juliet, Rachel, Maria, Alba and Catriona took a staggering 91 meetings between them with publishers from 25 different countries over the fair’s three days, with international co-agents, publishers, editors, and film and television executives visiting the Mushens Entertainment booth on the first floor, followed by a celebratory dinner at The Ivy where we hosted colleagues and friends from the industry – both local and overseas.
Elsewhere, our very own Maria Wheelan was one of a panel of four incredible industry-leading women invited to take part in
Her Voice: tackling the gender gap in non-fiction publishing.
As women’s voices have remained systemically underrepresented in most narrative non-fiction disciplines, the seminar – built upon research taken by the Women's Prize Trust – aimed to highlight the disparity in pay and readership in a sector dominated by male authors. Maria was, of course, amazing, and was joined by an equally impressive panel chaired by Claire Shanahan, Executive Director, The Women's Prize Trust, alongside Roma Agrawak, Engineer and Author, and Kirty Topiwala, Executive Publisher, Non-Fiction, Hodder & Stoughton.
On Thursday, we had our final meetings and said goodbye to the Olympia which has been home to the London Book Fair for twelve consecutive years, since it moved from Earl’s Court following the 2014 event.
This week, we are back in the office, where the real work begins, sending out many of our authors’ books to the many foreign rights agents and publishers we met at the Fair, receiving and negotiating offers and contracts.
We look forward to attending LBF next year in its new home at the ExCeL!