What's the point of the London Book Fair?

"All this week (12-14 April) publishers and agents will rub shoulders and egos at the London Book Fair. This annual PR stunt will probably only make the headlines if some teenage wunderkind gets a six-figure advance for some nonsense, possibly involving a zebra with Munchausen's who decides to get a job. Except of course he or she (almost certainly a she - publishers do like good-looking chicks) won't receive anything like six figures - and after vanishing without trace will be replaced by the big thing, possibly in a Burka..."

Read the rest of my sad, embittered rant at the Huff Post.

(You'd be bitter too if your whole livelihood depended on people you've never met, who don't know anything, who weren't even born when you were working in warehouses, squatting and fucking, have never lived and know nothing and may well never know anything about life, love and literature... But hey - mustn't grumble!)