Hello again, and welcome to my second blog post. 

 Today I will talk about my most recent adventures at the Guadalajara Book Fair, in Mexico! This is the last fair of the year for Sweet Cherry, and the Christmas break is much needed. Before I shamelessly go off and eat too much Christmas pudding, I thought it would be a good opportunity to give you an insight into what I got up to in Guadalajara.

 The great thing about Foreign Rights is that one week you are on one side of the world and, the following week you are on the other. Fast-forward sixteen hours from leaving London Heathrow, and after transferring at Dallas, I was finally in Guadalajara. After mentally adjusting to the six-hour time difference, and the confusing feeling of twenty-five degrees Celsius in November, my fondness for a new, but the temporary home was instant.

 For those of you who don’t know, Guadalajara Book Fair (also referred to as FIL) is internationally renowned as a cultural event, attracting people from all over the world. Compared to the other fairs I have attended this year, FIL particularly stood out for me because of the scale of its involvement with the community. The warmth of the people is understandably comparable to the weather.

 The fair was a very fun, jam-packed three days. So here is a quick summary of what I got up to! Please note, the fairs do not finish at five o’clock, we like to make the most of these trips and fill time in the evenings…

 The evening before the fair The British Embassy in Mexico, The Publishers Association and The British Council created a lovely event where different people in the industry got together to celebrate the British presence in Mexico – a great way to kick-off the fair, which was in a very beautiful location called the Casa Borell.

 Throughout the first and second day in particular, I was stationed in the Rights Centre. Here I had my organised meetings with publishers not just from Mexico, but from all over South America. Like other fairs, we discussed titles and potential ways we could work together.

Day three, my last official day of the fair, was actually the day I was most nervous about. My meetings over the last two days had gone exceptionally well. The only thing left was a panel discussion that I was taking part in. The topic of discussion was the trends and opportunities in the Children’s Book Market in the UK. Whilst I am very new to public speaking, the discussion proved to be very rewarding and memorable.

 To bring my blog to a close, I really did enjoy the Guadalajara Book Fair. It was interesting to see how business is done on that side of the pond. In 2016 Sweet Cherry will continue to travel all over the world. Stay tuned for our experiences at the Taiwan Book Fair, Bologna Book Fair and London Book Fair!

 Merry Christmas and happy New Year!