Some 299,112 people attended this year's fair, a 5.6% increase on last year. There were 186,240 trade visitors, 7373 companies exhibiting in the halls and 510 literary agents working in the LitAg centre. Fair director Juergen Boos described this year's fair as ‘optimistic, lively and full of energy,' and he felt that digitisation was a key aspect of the 2008 fair: ‘There is a need for orientation with regards to the new business models and fields of business that digitisation brings,' he said.
Guest of Honour Turkey ‘took full advantage of the opportunity to present their country on the world's largest stage for literature,' said Boos, with over 100 Turkish publishers and 250 authors attending, participating in a very full program of events throughout the fair. Next year's Guest of Honour will be China.
Tales from Hall 8
Australian publishers joined their colleagues from throughout the English-speaking world in Hall 8. Most publishers WBN spoke to reported a good fair, but a number noted that there were some empty stands and a much higher-than-usual number of missed or cancelled appointments.
Philippa McGuinness of UNSW Press declared her first visit to Frankfurt ‘a great experience'. By the last day, Scribe's Henry Rosenbloom was not alone in calling the fair ‘exhausting: it's a full week of sprints within a marathon'.
Among the ‘buzz' titles, A&U's Jane Palfreyman reported ‘great interest' in Christos Tsolkias' The Slap; UQP's Greg Bain was known throughout the halls as ‘the man with the Schlink' as he did deals for Bernhard Schlink's book of essays Guilt about the Past; and Nick Cave's novel The Death of Bunny Munro, originated by Canongate in the UK, with Text to publish in Australia, has now sold into multiple territories.
Probably the biggest physical book at the fair was Millennium House's massive Earth. With only 2000 copies of the full-size edition to be produced, at an RRP of A$5000, interest in this huge book was ... huge. Gordon Cheers told WBN that he sold 45 copies to German bookshops and that after coverage on CNN, orders for 15 copies per day were coming in. ‘I fully expect to sell out,' he said.
Australian educational publishers enjoyed a successful Frankfurt, with Era Publications' Rod Martin describing it as ‘one of the best fairs I've been to ... and I've been coming for over 30 years!' Blake Education also had a strong fair, selling the ‘Reading Eggs' series to Korea and doing some ‘very good deals' with European publishers.
Sheila Drummond was one of a number of Australian literary agents at one of the 360 tables in the LitAg agents centre. ‘At the height of things on Wednesday and Thursday it's really buzzing,' she said.
Clive Newman of Fremantle Press was one of a number of Australian publishers to note strong interest in YA titles. ‘We had lots of interest in our YA list from German publishers, the Dutch and the US' he said. Susan Hawthorne of Spinifex had ‘significant interest in our YA titles, especially from Germany'. Spinifex, Text and A&U all reported that books that cross-over between YA and late-teen/early-20s readers were in demand.
With operations in both Australia and New Zealand, Exisle's Benny Thomas was part of the NZ stand. Thomas had ‘a terrific fair', with sales of backlist and Exisle's new books for next year ‘really well-received'. ‘This is our fifth year,' she said, ‘the first time we saw 30 people; this year we had over 120 appointments.'
In parlous times for the world economy, Ian Webster of Sally Milner Publishing was one publisher who saw the upside of operating in a niche area--in his case craft books. ‘We operate in very established markets for quality, niche products,' he said, ‘and in hard times, I've always found that craft and home-based books always do well: people might not spend on a new car, a big house renovation or holiday, so they turn to hobbies, crafts and home improvement.' Scribe's Henry Rosenbloom also noted that: ‘The pressure is on the UK publishers in particular, as the state of their retail market is so parlous: it creates some opportunities for us.'
But for all the good news, a number of Australian publishers noticed a downturn, with many more browsers than buyers. ‘A lot of the foreign editors have told us they can't afford to take risks on anything except huge bestsellers,' said one publisher. ‘And a lot of the people we see who are usually here all week only came for a few days.' Another publisher told WBN that ‘We saw plenty of people, but either they were hesitant to commit, or they were trying to push a really hard bargain. Everyone talks positive talk in appointments, but at the end of the day when you speak candidly to each other, people are pretty worried.'
There will be a full report on Frankfurt in the Summer issue of Bookseller+Publisher magazine, including a comprehensive rights/acquisitions round-up, so please continue sending your Frankfurt news to tim.coronel@thorpe.com.au.
For a photo-essay of our time at the fair, see the Bookseller+Publisher Facebook group page.
For many more Frankfurt stories--many contributed by former WBN publisher Andrew Wilkins--visit the fair's official English-language news blog at http://www.book-fair.com/en/blog/.
