Frankfurt Book Fair

Recently, I asked the publisher of a major imprint what he thought of BookCon. "What's BookCon?" he asked. BookCon, I reminded him, is the latest effort by Book Expo America, the country's largest publishing trade fair (which starts Wednesday), to open up on its last day to the public, or whatever portion of it wants to pay $30 to spend a Saturday collecting autographs at the Javits Center. Its organizers, New York Comic Con managers ReedPop, aim to do for books what the ever-expanding universe of Comic Cons do for Marvel

  English international exhibitors are moving from Hall 8 to Halls 6 and 4 from 2015, as part of an effort to put English-language publishers at the “at the heart of the action”, the Frankfurt Book Fair has announced.

The rump of English speaking international exhibitors will be relocated in Halls 6.0, 6.1, and 6.2, with the Literary Agents and Scouts Centre to be housed in Hall 6.3. STM and Educational publishers will remain in Hall 4.2.

Peter McCarthy and Mike Shatzkin have joined forces on a new venture, The Logical Marketing Agency, a digital marketing services-provider for publishers and authors. The company is offering a range of title- and author-optimization and research options at prices scaled to fit publishing budgets. The founders expect to provide solutions both for individual authors - mainly through a web portal - and for the largest companies.

It sometimes seems that not a day goes by without another article on the death of the textbook. This is perhaps with good reason; the classroom of the future is one that's connected, collaborative, and built around tablets and digital devices. That's if it even exists physically; many point to MOOCs and virtualized learning environments as the way forward. Either way, the isolating world of the print textbook seems to be one that will soon be consigned to the dustbin.

In the summer of 2012, my friend Hans Kemp and I were sitting in Bangkok, Thailand, talking about the changing world of publishing and the new challenges facing small independent publishers and writers. Hans and I had just collaborated on a successful illustrated book — Sacred Skin, Thailand’s Spirit Tattoos — for his Hong Kong based publishing house Visionary World.

Thema is a new global subject code scheme meant to standardize how publishers, booksellers, and others describe book content. It’s something the U.S. publishing ecosystem should be paying close attention to.

A book is a book is a book—is it not?  Not in the hall at the former Church of Christ, Scientist, now turned into the magnificent home of the Internet Archive on Funston Avenue at the edge of the Presidio in San Francisco. The Archive, established in 1996 with the goal of offering permanent access to records that exist in digital format, is the venue for the annual Books in Browsers conference, which took place on October 24th and 25th. This reporter attended this year for the first time, and had her mind blown.

I have been attending the Frankfurt Book Fair for many years now. Many of you might agree with me when I say that there was a definite decline in the hustle-bustle during the first few days of the "Messe." Although despite the calm, one could easily spot the influence of digital publishing everywhere. I believe, we are witnessing a maturity in the industry today - a growth in eBook revenues, widespread acceptance of digital business models and maturity in digital publishing processes. It's now safe to say that digital is growing up!

Sitting down? Good: There are more than 7,800 exhibitors from close to 100 countries listed for the 2013 Frankfurt Book Fair (October 9-13), the world’s largest publishing trade show, and the one that doubles as a showcase for the financial capital of Europe’s railway service.  You'll want to sit down and rest your feet before heading to Frankfurt to try to cover the show!

Before joining Book Business last year, I was the director of graduate publishing programs at Rosemont College. In that job, it was my primary responsibility to develop courses, hire instructors and help shape the curriculum that would allow our students to gain the skills needed for a successful publishing career.