Bruno Blog

This week we are in LBF, and being able to sell book Rights in such an amazing city is a privilege. Getting to see, once again, our publishers from around the world, many of them who are already friends is such a joy. Being able to talk face to face, realising they have fallen in Love with that author we fell in Love, and with whom we’ve worked so hard to make the rest Love as much as we do, it is extraordinary. However, translating our authors into foreign languages is not an easy task at all, since you have to be very cautious with the path you decide the title to follow, so that the sale is a massive success.

London this year has been so special since we have celebrated Francesc Miralles’ and Hector Garcia’s have been translated into 42 countries, but we have properly celebrated these amazing news with a special event in a Japanese tea shop, where the Authors revealed and explained their new and exciting project. This means lots of work, but it also means we’ve had the chance to meet some amazing publishers to whom we’ve been pleased to show the amazing material we gather such as Alejandro Palomas or Care Santos, that even though sometimes it is harder to sell in International Markets, they have achieved an faithful reading team in each country, because with hard work, patience and effort, anything can be achieved.

We are very excited with all the titles in our catalogue, and we thoroughly believe each and every one of it deserves to have its way and its space, although finding them is not always an easy work, but it is a work that through patience and persistence can definitely be achieved.

I’m sure there are many chances on the way, and we will not let any of them escape. We are back, with the trolley full of work, but looking forward to begin. Stronger than ever, ready to make our catalogue reach the stars. There we go!

This week Bologna Children’s Book Fair has taken place, we’ve taken a break, and now we are stronger than ever to face London. In May, we will travel to New York and we will also attend Madrid’s Book Fair, so great things are about to happen for sure. In our suitcases, we carry our authors and their novels, so that wherever we travel we find publishers all over the world that fall in love with our catalogue. We also carry our illusion, our determination, our hard work so that all together we can find the right place for our titles. The only way to succeed is through patience, we all know that, but the truth is we truly believe anything can happen, since we are truly confident with what we have. So I hope these holidays bring us back together full of good energy. The marathon has just began, we have trained and we are ready for it, and the best is we will face its final sprint with the best company: our books.

Attached here, our catalogues so that everyone has a perfectly matched title this break. Attached, also, the catalogues we have prepared for Bologna and London (specially prepared for the publishers who are looking for the best).

Have a nice break and remember the best company for a holiday is a book, or more than one.

This week I’m writing from London, a city that I like more each time I come. It was the first city where I travelled alone, to do an internship in the Blake Friedmann agency when I was just 19 years old and it was, truthfully, an experience that helped me a lot, although at nineteen it was hard for me to know that, and I could never imagine I’d get to where I am today. It made me grow up suddenly, as I had to get out of my comfort zone and sharpen my wits. I was fearful, but I had to do it to improve my English and travel to Frankfurt, my first Book Fair, in 1993. It was intense, I missed my family, my friends, but I don’t regret it and, with time, I see that there are moments in life that come as challenges you must overcome, and that was one of them.

Today, unfortunately, Carole Blake is no longer with us, but I’ll always be grateful to her for having taken me in with such kindness, and for having been able to see live the work of a foreign literary agency. The literary world is fascinating, but difficult, and agencies have a difficult role in its inner workings. As years go by, I understand much better some of the attitudes my predecessors had, because the road ahead is not easy, and you need a certain kind of character to succeed -and a little bit of magic, I can assure you. I’ve been lucky to have met lots and different agents from whom I’ve learnt, and still there’s much to do and magic to discover.

This week I’ll leave you with the link of our London Book Fair catalogue, with all the novelties that we believe can travel more easily to other countries. As always, our selling team is in London with tons of excitement and illusion to get as many translations as possible, so I send you lots of positive energy to live another fair with a smile so we can achieve those dreams. And let’s not forget our motto: “There’s a book for every publisher, and a publisher for every book”. Our mission is to find them and connect them. The magic comes with us, and it’s in our pockets.

Have a good fair everyone!