At the London Book Fair there’s not much reading going on. Shocking. Utterly shocking.

You might be forgiven for thinking that the London Book Fair is about books and authors — and of course in a sense it is. It is just that few books and even fewer authors are seen here.

Rather, with the public excluded from the fair’s site, the hangarlike spaces of Earls Court One in west London, thousands of book editors, agents and scouts are able to indulge in their favorite pastime: schmoozing.

They do so every fall at the Frankfurt Book Fair, but increasingly London is their gathering place in the spring, above all for the lucrative part of the publishing industry that involves selling foreign rights for English-language books.

So no, this three-day book fair, which closes on Wednesday, is not a celebration of literature or high-profile authors in the way that, say, the Salon du Livre in Paris draws crowds of devoted book lovers and ranks as an important event in the city’s cultural calendar.

At the London Book Fair, what is on display is the art of the deal.