Frankfurt Book Fair
A new chapter in publishing
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Spread over 5 days from 9th - 13th October 2013, the fair will host over 7,000 exhibitors from over 100 countries. Over 286,000 visitors from around the world are expected to participate in this year's event, which is the most significant book fair worldwide in terms of book rights and licensing agreements.
History
The Frankfurt Book Fair began more than 500 years ago when the inventor of movable type printing, Johannes Gutenberg (1395-1468) lived in Mainz, near Frankfurt. The booksellers of the region started a small fair which grew in size until it became the largest bookfair of the region by the end of the 17th century. It was eclipsed for a while as the Leipzig Book Fair became a more prestigious event due to the cultural and political events of the time. However, after the mid 20th century, post the Second World War, the Frankfurt Book Fair regained its pre-eminent position amongst the book fairs of the world and is now the must-visit event if you're a player in the global publishing market.
Among the highlights of the Frankfurt Book Fair are
The Peace Prize of the German Book Trade: Every year since 1950 a writer adjudged to have made a significant contribution to facilitating peace in their time is awarded this prestigious prize. The prize is worth €25,000 and will be awarded to Svetlana Alexievich, a writer and investigative journalist from Belarus in 2013. The Prize will be presented at the St Paul's Church in Frankfurt.
The Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year: This popular prize is a humorous award which is given to the book with the oddest title exhibited at the fair. The prize is named after the graphics company Diagram Group and The Bookseller, a British magazine for the publishing trade. Since 2000, an open public vote on The Bookseller's website has decided the prize-winning title. The 2012 title was won by Goblinproofing One's Chicken Coop: Guide to banishing fairies from your home, written by Bakeley Reginal and published by Conari Press.
The world's largest bookfair: According to data released by the organizers in 2012, the Frankfurt Book Fair is the world's largest bookfair with 7,307 exhibitors from 97 countries. Last year an average of 280,000 visitors came to the fair, of which 60%. are trade visitors. There were a total of 281,753 visitors and 171,250 trade visitors from 141 countries in 2012.
The Frankfurt Book Fair is the most important forum for book rights and licences worldwide: 626 Agents and 321 Literary Agencies registered at the Fair in 2012, a sharp rise from the number of registered agents a year ago.
Trade visitors' origin
Visitors come to the Frankfurt Book Fair from many countries around the world. According to data released by the organizers in 2012 the maximum visitors came from the following areas:
- Germany 64.5%
- Europe (other than Germany) 24.8%
- Asia 5.8%
- America 4.2%
- Africa and Australia 0.7%
Guest of Honor Countries
The Frankfurt Book Fair has a had a tradition of a designated Guest of Honor country every year. This enables the chosen country to showcase its writers, publishing industry, and new publishing initiatives at the fair. The guest of honor countries/regions in recent and future years are:
- 2002 - Lithuania
- 2003 - Russia
- 2004 - Arab World
- 2005 - Korea
- 2006 - India
- 2007 - Catalan Culture
- 2008 - Turkey
- 2009 - China
- 2010 - Argentina
- 2011 - Iceland
- 2012 - New Zealand
- 2013 - Brazil
- 2014 - Finland
- 2015 - Indonesia
Trade visitors' occupation
As the world's leading trade fair for the publishing industry, the Frankfurt Book Fair attracts visitors from all areas of the publishing industry, as well as academics and educational institutions – the largest consumers of books. The top 10 professions of visitors to the book fair, according to data released by the organizers in 2012, are:
1. Booksellers
2. Publishers
3. Librarians, documentalist
4. Lecturers, teachers, educators
5. Authors
6. Journalists
7. Translators
8. Designers, graphic artists, illustrators
9. University, research institute
10. Editors
Increasing Digitization
With the advent of ebooks and epublishing, all major publishers have started issuing their products in both print and electronic formats. The standardization of the epub format, and the adoption of gadgets such as the ipad, Kindle, Nook and other ereaders has led to increasing digitization of books worldwide. According to data released by the organizers in 2012,
- 8.5% of the exhibitors offer exclusively digital products.
- Almost 6% generate their entire income from digital products.
- Only 32% of the exhibitors do not sell digital products.
- And 51% of exhibitors said "Digitisation is changing our business".
Frankfurt Book Fair is the publishing industry's largest media event: As the world's premiere publishing trade event, the Frankfurt Book Fair attracts tremendous media attention. Last year 9,000 accredited journalists from 60 countries across the world participated in the book fair, reporting on it for their respective media agencies worldwide.
Use of Social Media Platforms
The Frankfurt Book Fair has also seen increasing use of social media across various platforms. Between 2011 and 2012, the number of accredited bloggers nearly doubled to 800 and about 50,000 viewers read the book fair's official blog. The Frankfurt Book Fair website had 30,000 registered users, and 7.5 million page impressions. The Book Fair's social media outreach included a Facebook page which had 20,000 followers, and its Twitter handle was followed by 11,400 people.
In a world where the printed word has morphed into a digital meme, the Frankfurt Book Fair 2013 offers a platform for the who's who of the international publishing industry to gather and discuss the future directions of global publishing. Are you going to be at Frankfurt from 9th to 13th October, 2013?
