The LBF Edit: Day Zero, Japan and what’s ahead for LBF 2027 with Emma Lowe

Welcome to the first edition of The LBF Edit.

As Exhibition Director of The London Book Fair, I get a pretty unique view of what’s happening across publishing – from the conversations we’re having with publishers, authors and industry partners to the ideas and changes that shape what we’re building for the Fair itself.

So, once a month, I’ll be sharing some of that here: what we’re working on at LBF, what’s catching my attention across the industry and, occasionally, what I think deserves a little more conversation.

There’s plenty to start with.

This month, I’m looking at why LBF 2027 will really start on Monday, Japan’s return as our Market Focus, FutureBook coming to Excel London and, before all of that, our plans for Frankfurt in October.

Here’s what’s on my mind this month.

Day Zero is Monday 15 March 2027, the day before The London Book Fair officially opens, and this year we're giving publishing professionals more reasons to start their LBF week early.

One of the advantages of our move to Excel London is having the space to think differently about how the week works.

Rather than everything beginning when the Fair doors open on Tuesday morning, four events will take place at Excel on Monday, each serving a different part of the publishing community.

For me, that's the point of Day Zero. It isn't about making LBF longer for the sake of it. It's about making better use of the fact that so much of the international publishing industry is already coming to London that week.

Day Zero will bring together:

1. The Writers' Summit,
2. IPG professional development training course
3. HP ConTEXT and
4. The FutureBook Conference (recently announced) 

The Writers' Summit has been part of LBF for a number of years but previously took place at a different venue. In 2027, we're bringing it together at Excel, to sit alongside the rest of the LBF week.

It's an opportunity for writers to get closer to the business behind publishing: understanding how the industry works, hearing directly from experts and developing the knowledge needed to navigate it.

Bringing it onsite feels like a sensible next step. Authors are fundamental to this industry, so having those conversations happening in the same meeting place as the wider publishing community will do that week makes sense.

The Independent Publishers Guild will bring its award-winning professional development training to Excel, with a session focused on AI.

There's no shortage of conversation about AI in publishing. What I think people increasingly need is less speculation and more practical understanding: what does it actually mean for your role and your business, and what can you usefully do with it?

AI isn't going away, and neither are the questions around it. I think there's real value in creating space for publishing professionals to move beyond the headlines and get into what it actually means for their day-to-day work.

HP ConTEXT will also take place at Excel, bringing together publishers, manufacturers, service providers and associations to look at the operational issues affecting book production.

Publishing is obviously about stories, but getting those stories into readers' hands involves an enormous ecosystem. Production, sustainability and supply chain challenges deserve serious attention alongside conversations about rights, content and technology.

We recently announced that LBF will host the FutureBook Conference, organised in conjunction with The Bookseller, at Excel on Monday 15 March.

FutureBook will bring together publishing leaders and future leaders to tackle some of the bigger questions facing the trade, from AI and DEI to censorship and fandom, and what those shifts actually mean for publishing businesses and professionals. 

For me, bringing FutureBook and LBF together feels like a full-circle moment. LBF has always been about creating the space for insightful conversations, finding new stories and continuing old ones. FutureBook has long done something similar, so bringing the two together feels like a natural fit.

What I’m particularly interested in is what happens when you add LBF’s international audience into that mix. FutureBook already creates space for big-picture thinking; combining that with the breadth of publishers, agents, authors, booksellers and industry professionals coming to London should make for some genuinely useful conversations. That international expansion is also a key part of the thinking behind the 2027 conference. 

It won’t be about pretending the industry has all the answers. Hopefully, it will be a place to ask better questions.

Japan will be the Market Focus at The London Book Fair 2027, marking the return of the programme for the first time since 2022.

Anyone paying attention to the UK book market recently will understand why the timing feels right.

Japanese writing is having a remarkable moment with UK readers. In 2025, the top seven translated authors in the UK were all Japanese, with Japanese writers accounting for 24 of the Top 50, according to NielsenIQ BookScan data reported by The Bookseller.

But the interesting thing is the breadth.

We're talking about everything from manga and fiction to self-help and the wave of cosy Japanese literature finding enormous audiences internationally.

Working with the Japan Book Publishers Association, we'll be developing a programme of authors and events that gives the international publishing community an opportunity to engage with that breadth properly.

And, from a business perspective, Market Focus is ultimately about creating the conditions for more international relationships: between publishers, authors, agents and rights professionals who might not otherwise find themselves in the same conversation.

There's much more to come on Japan over the next few months.

Yes. The LBF team will be at Frankfurt Book Fair from 7–11 October 2026, and you'll find us at Stand 4.2 J95, near the UK Publishers Association.

Frankfurt is always an important week in the publishing calendar and a valuable opportunity for us to hear directly from the industry.

We'll obviously be talking about LBF 2027, our move to Excel and some of the plans I've mentioned here, but I'm equally interested in hearing what everyone else is working on.

What are your priorities for 2027? What's changing in your market? What are you finding difficult? And what do you need from LBF?

If you're in Frankfurt, come and see us at Stand 4.2 J95. I'd genuinely like to hear it.

There's plenty more to announce between now and 16 March, but our focus is straightforward: making those three days – and increasingly the days around them – as valuable as possible for the international publishing industry.

The London Book Fair is a global marketplace for rights, IP and content across print, audio, TV, film and digital channels. That's a broad remit, and it means LBF needs to keep evolving as the businesses and people it serves evolve too. The FutureBook announcement itself describes LBF's role across rights negotiation and content distribution in print, audio, TV, film and digital.

Day Zero is one part of that. Japan is another. And there’s plenty more to come.

For now, I’ll see some of you in Frankfurt – and I’ll be back next month with another update.

If you’d like to be among the first to hear about new speakers, programme highlights and what else we have planned for LBF 2027, register your interest and we’ll keep you in the loop.

Emma Lowe
Exhibition Director,
The London Book Fair

Looking for something else?