London Book Fair 2017: For Publishers, Business Is Booming, but Brexit Means Uncertainty

In his talk, DK Publishing CEO Ian Hudson said that, for publishers, the devil will be in the details when it comes to Brexit.

"You may or may not like the outcome of last year's referendum," he said. "Like me, you may believe that socially, culturally, and in terms of standing we will be much the poorer for [leaving the E.U.]. But it's far from clear to me that we have to be worse off economically."

"The U.K. now has around two years to work out what type of country it wants to be in the future."

Hudson then ran down a number of issues that DK-a global publisher, doing in business in 100 countries-now faces: chief among them, retaining good, international talent. Hudson said the government should immediately guarantee the right of international workers to stay in the country, saying it was "inhuman" to use their live and careers as negotiating chips.

"Talent diversity and internationality is crucial to DK, and I would suggest that over the past couple centuries it has been crucial to the U.K. and its development as a highly creative society," Hudson said, noting that of the 500 employees in DK's U.K. office, 81 do not have British passports. "Diversity and creativity go hand-in-hand. We need to be able to retain our European talent, and we need to be able to recruit European talent, and talent from outside Europe, so they can help us continue to develop books that will appeal to global markets."