One of the world’s biggest international literary events, the London book fair, has been cancelled over coronavirus fears, amid growing anger that the delay in calling it off was putting people’s health at risk and an unfair financial strain on publishers.

Organiser Reed Exhibitions announced on Wednesday that the escalation of the illness meant the fair, scheduled to run from 10 to 12 March, would be called off. Around 25,000 publishers, authors and agents from around the world had been due to attend the event, where deals for the hottest new books are struck.

But the event was already set to be a ghost town when it opened its doors, after publishers and rights agencies began withdrawing en masse over the last week. Some of the world’s biggest, including Penguin Random House, HarperCollins and Hachette had already pulled out, as had Amazon and a host of literary agencies including Curtis Brown.

“We have been following UK government guidelines and working with the rolling advice from the public health authorities and other organisations, and so it is with reluctance that we have taken the decision not to go ahead with this year’s event,” said Reed.

Penguin Random House said it had withdrawn “in the interest of the health and wellbeing of our employees, authors, and partners”. Hachette cited a “duty of care to our staff”, as did HarperCollins, pointing to “the health and safety of our employees and others” and the number of cancelled appointments at the event. Amazon withdrew with “an abundance of caution”. Reed had previously advised exhibitors to avoid shaking hands, stay one metre away from each other, and to “book an enhanced cleaning/sanitisation regime for your stand”.

After their withdrawal, observers were unsurprised by Reed’s announcement on Wednesday. “Walking through the main hall to see none of the big five publishers’ stands would be like being inside some dystopian future where most things have been wiped out by a killer bug,” wrote novelist Stuart Evers on Twitter.

Many in the industry were angry that Reed had not taken the decision earlier, forcing publishers and agencies to take matters into their own hands. Small publishers worried about the loss of hundreds of pounds in hotel and transport fees, while critics pointed out that other book industry events, including the Salon du Livre in Paris and the Leipzig book fair, had been cancelled. Both had been due to take place later this month.

“Reed is an enormous and very profitable company. I understand that if they cancelled last week they would have taken a financial hit, but that would have been the responsible thing to do. They’ve been citing government advice but it’s really irresponsible in the current climate to have a mass gathering of international publishers,” said one senior publishing figure. “It’s a very ugly cat and mouse game they’re playing. It’s purely financial and makes them look money-grabbing. It’s making a lot of publishers wonder how much they need London book fair. We have Frankfurt, which is the key fair on the global calendar. I think they’ve damaged their reputation and the loyalty we felt.”

Literary agent Jonny Geller, whose agency Curtis Brown withdrew from the fair on Tuesday, found one ray of light in his absence: it would mean he and his fellow agents had more time to read submissions from new authors.

“We’ve suddenly got space,” he said. “As you build up to a fair, agents are working so hard getting everything ready. If it’s gone, what can we do with that hunger?”

There has also been controversy over the decision to go ahead with the AWP conference, an annual gathering of more than 10,000 writers and publishers in Texas, where a public health emergency was declared on Monday. On Tuesday, the event said it would go ahead as planned, but that it would be a “handshake-free, hug-free conference”. One of its co-directors subsequently resigned over the decision.

