The International Rights Centre was similarly besieged with a constant flow up the escalators to its hallowed halls.  One agent I spoke to, however, preferred to walk through the fair, meeting up with colleagues old and new on the way.  This tactic  had already yielded her an impromptu meeting which would almost certainly lead to four or five good deals.  There was a preponderence of books about Robert Pattinson, the Twilight hunk, although my own publishers, Piccadilly Press, had beaten everyone to the punch and got their book out months ago.

There was no dearth of drink either – I left at 4.30pm and the wine glasses were already out.  There may be talk of a new abstemious attitude in publishing but here, at least, people seemed determined to remain upbeat.  The Fair is a dizzying experience even without wine and it’s almost impossible to take in all the titles on display.  I did, however, pay homage to my YA trilogy, Kumari, prominently displayed on the Bounce Marketing stand.

Of course this is a tough economic climate but I see no reason why books should not ride out the storm.  If anything, I would expect them to follow the pattern of DVDs and ready meals – sales of which are up as people hunker down at home.  What will sink us all is a giving-in to the general malaise that infects, and is propagated by,  the media.  Newscasters seem to take a positive delight in passing on the latest horrific recession story or of bandying around depressing figures.  Yes, things are bad.  But we can get through this.  And the best way to do that is to maintain a positive, creative attitude – a ton of which was in evidence at the London Book Fair.

The London Book Fair finishes today.  For more about it:

http://www.londonbookfair.co.uk

Another publisher, Headline, started a new list a few months back with the specific intention of marketing books to teens without identifying them as the target audience.   Shrewdly, Headline recognised that many of the books on offer in the children’s market tread delicately around the very subjects that interest teenagers.  Yes – sex, drugs and death are hot topics for the average spotty youth, a fact which is borne out by the astonishing success of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series.

As a writer for this very market I have come up against editing strictures which dictate suitable content for a younger readership.  Of course we need to be careful when writing for children but we also need to balance that with a healthy dose of reality.  Teenagers are more  aware than ever.  They are bombarded with at least five types of media every waking minute of every day.  Are we really so naive as to believe that a high proportion of that will not be oriented towards the very things we shrink from showing them?   After all, half the fun lies in the forbidden.   I distinctly remember as a teenager reading some fairly strong stuff.

My brushes with adult themes did me no lasting harm and the Nick Carter books I smuggled in to my dormitory were at the very least an early introduction to shlock fiction.   I think that as writers we owe it to our audience to reflect their concerns and interests rather than pretend they do not exist.   It is ludicrous to write a teenage romance and avoid even the slightest mention of sex.  Of course I don’t want my daughter to pick up a book one day and be assaulted by a graphic description of the act.   But even at seven she is aware that animals mate.   By the time she gets to seventeen she will no doubt have extended this awareness further.

One of the worst things a writer for young adults can do is patronise his or her readership.   That ‘young adult’ tag says it all – these are not children, certainly not in their own minds.   Despite what harried parents might think, they are not aliens either.  Teenagers want what everybody else wants from a book – a rattling good story coupled with compelling characters.  They want to be astonished, absorbed and above all completely drawn into a book.  It’s hard enough to get some of them reading  in the first place – you need to hook them in and hold on to them with just the power of your words.   And those words should reflect all the agony and ecstasy of being a teenager – no longer a child and not yet an adult but a person who has the right to choose what to read and what to ignore.