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Akin & Randolph At The London Bookfair 2000 Sells Its Rights Off!

Selling books is all work and no play and often takes agents to Bookfairs across the globe.    Wanda M. Akin of the Akin and Randolph Agency recently attended the London Bookfair where agents and publishing houses rights departments shop their hot titles.  Akin crossed the Atlantic to find a foreign publisher or agent interested in Finding Mr. Write: A New Slant for Finding the Perfect Mate by Beverley East, Lying Down with the Lions: A Public Life from the Streets of Oakland to the Halls of Power by Ronald V. Dellums and H. Lee Halterman and other books she negotiated deals for. Akin was also looking for deals for books she recently acquired agency rights to. 

While there was a lot of pitching in the International Rights Centre and walking the floor over the three-day fair, Akin offered prospective agents and publishers a taste of what they will discover about themselves and their mates in Finding Mr. Write. During a catered reception Akin and her editorial consultant Angeli R. Rasbury organized, the author, Beverley East, analyzed handwriting samples of people in all areas of the industry from as far as Australia.  East also discussed some of the handwriting traits that she reveals in the book. 

Akin and Rasbury, a former book review editor for BIBR, met prospective literary clients, including two Black women who live in London and have published books for Black women in the UK. Over dinner in a restaurant in the Camden Town section of London, the group discussed publishing in the United States, the United Kingdom, the black book-buying market in both countries, as well as the National Black Writers Conference and The Write Thing, an annual conference for writers in London, spearheaded by organizer, Tony Fairweather.  Akin and Fairweather plan joint events for writers and people interested in writing to take place in 2001, both abroad and in the United States.  

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