Notes from London Book Fair: Soi Books Back in Motion

A useful point in the year

The London Book Fair always arrives at a useful point in the calendar. It comes just far enough into the year that the industry has shaken off January, but early enough that most of the real work is still ahead. For us at Soi Books, it also marks the end of Q1 and the point where we move from planning into deeper production mode. This year, though, it felt like something else too: a quiet sign that we were properly back in the publishing cycle after a difficult 2025.

Publishing is slow, and that slowness is not always obvious from the outside. Books take years to move from idea to shelf. A conversation becomes a proposal, then a dummy, then a set of layouts, then eventually a finished object. London Book Fair is one of the places where that whole cycle becomes briefly visible.

London Book Fair, Olympia.
A few days of conversations, catalogues, and quiet signals that the publishing cycle is moving again.

Seeing the work in the wild

This year we had a few reminders of that. Two books we worked on with Rizzoli were out in the world: Flower Fables and Esoterica. Seeing finished copies on a stand is always satisfying. You remember the early conversations, the image searches, the layouts that did not work, and the ones that suddenly did. A finished book can flatten years of work into a single object, but fairs like this bring some of that process back into view.

Thames & Hudson also had the dummy for True World Skate circulating. A dummy is not a finished book, but it is much more than an idea. It shows the structure, rhythm, and ambition of a project. We have also got copies available for pre-order over on the Stickerbomb shop.

ACC, our partners and distributors, had a digital copy of the revised edition of Tifo, which was great to see as well. That is also available for pre-order on the Stickerbomb site.

There were also a couple of BLADs in circulation for projects we are developing with Hachette, which we cannot talk about just yet. And somewhere in the background, we are fairly sure Stickerbomb was doing the rounds again too. It is always slightly surreal to think about how long a publishing life can be once a book leaves the studio.

The fair as checkpoint

More than anything, London Book Fair felt like a checkpoint. We spent time reconnecting with publishers we know and meeting some we would like to build with in future. It was good to see Prestel, Batsford, MACK, and Gestalten all in the mix. If you work in art, design, or visual culture publishing, those names still mean something.

For us, London is less about headline rights activity than Frankfurt. Frankfurt is where the international conversations really sharpen. London feels more like a moment to take stock: to see what has made it through the system, what is taking shape, and what might come next.

Soi Books back in motion

That was especially true this year because there was also a steady flow of conversations around packaging and design work. Over the past few years, Soi Books has increasingly operated not only as an independent publisher, but as a publishing studio. Alongside our own titles, we work with other publishers to shape projects from the ground up: concept development, editorial structure, design, packaging, and, where relevant, special editions.

After a tough 2025, that felt like a good sign.

A little look inside The Esoterica Sticker Book, fresh off the Rizzoli stand at London Book Fair.

Publishing momentum rarely returns all at once. Usually it comes back through smaller signals: a finished book on a stand, a dummy being passed between editors, a conversation that starts with someone saying they have been thinking about doing something.

Walking out of Olympia this year, that was the feeling. We were back in motion.

For Soi Books, the next stretch is about turning those signals into actual books. Manuscripts need writing, layouts need designing, and the quiet work of publishing still needs to happen. But it was good to be back in the cycle and seeing books we helped make out in the world, talking about new ones, and heading into the next phase with a bit more momentum.

Stickerbomb Sneakers, pint in hand.
One of our latest releases — over 200 sneaker stickers, best enjoyed somewhere between the pub and the pavement.