The Oxdam Book Fair

This semester, during our 2nd-year undergraduate International Publishing module, over 30 students from Oxford attended the inaugural Oxdam Book Fair, run online and in partnership with the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences.  

 

Students on the module from both universities were set to work in teams throughout the day-long event, with each team representing fictional publishers. The teams then competed against each other to buy and sell book translation rights.

 

Working as a buyer, I was tasked to meet with several publishers in the online break-out rooms. There, I would listen to pitches for new titles and negotiate to acquire the rights to publish them, and it really did feel like we were experiencing the buzz of the industry.

 

Negotiating, networking, gathering inside information, calculating fees and managing Excel spreadsheets throughout the day with my amazing team paid off - we won awards for both selling and buying rights! 

 

Thank you so much to Philip Shaw, our module leader at Brookes, and Rose Leighton and Lieke Biesma, our lecturers from Amsterdam, for organising this online book fair simulation. I learned so much participating in an international team and can't wait to do it for real when working in the industry!