Frankfurt Book Fair

If you like books, attending the Frankfurt Book Fair is like being a kid in an unimaginably enormous candy store. It is the publishing industry’s largest annual book fair—and this year’s event, held Oct. 4-8 in Frankfurt, Germany, showcased 382,000 titles, including 112,000 new publications. And even if you’re used to walking, wearing comfortable shoes is a must. Aisle after aisle filled 13 exhibition halls, showing the products of more than 7,200 exhibitors. Fair organizers say the event, which is in its 58th year, attracted the largest number of exhibitors ever. Fortunately, shuttle buses that ran from hall to hall helped ease the burden

It’s more important than ever to get books to the market fast. More days in production can mean fewer days on the market and fewer sales. For many publishers, especially those producing many titles simultaneously, good production scheduling tools are essential in keeping projects easily trackable, on schedule and problem-free. Here, Book Business takes a look at some of the industry’s leading software providers and the software on the market to help you with the complex task of production scheduling. AEC Software Product: FastTrack Schedule 9 Description: Colorful timelines and calendars are designed to illustrate project deadlines, status and goals. Production details are centralized, aiming to control your

14 percent The number of book publishers who saw e-book production as a sales opportunity rose from 10 percent to 24 percent from 2003 to 2006. Source: The Industry Source, October 2006 #1 According to a recent survey of 100 publishers, printing is the No. 1 area where book publishers face the most pressure to innovate. Source: Transcontinental 2008 & 2009 During its 2008 trade show, the Frankfurt Book Fair will feature Turkey as its guest country. In 2009, China will serve as the guest country. Top 10 Google announced the top 10 books searched for using Google Book Search.

It’s been a whirlwind of an autumn. Between traveling to the Frankfurt Book Fair, heading out to Chicago for our annual Gold Ink Awards and Hall of Fame Banquet, and relaunching our Web site, there’s been a lot going on. A highlight for me, however, was Book Business’ first-ever live webcast, called “Expand Your Brand: Webinars for Publishers.” We broadcast on Oct. 19, and had a great panel of speakers lined up. The potential for webcasts seems to be enormous for both book and magazine publishers, and the experience of holding a webcast of our own shed a whole new light on the process for

The 58th annual edition of the global publishing industry’s largest annual book fair wrapped up on Sunday, after a five-day run that fair organizers say attracted the largest number of exhibitors ever. According to Frankfurt Book Fair representatives, more than 286,000 trade visitors journeyed to Frankfurt, Germany, last week to visit with nearly 7,300 exhibitors from 113 countries. Organizers said that the number of U.S. publishers exhibiting dropped just slightly from previous years. A total of 382,000 titles, including 112,000 new publications, were on display throughout the 13-hall exhibition site. In addition to publishing companies from around the globe, also exhibiting were a number of international

Several international print publishers announced plans last week to launch a new system they say will protect the copyright of published material on the Web and guarantee them the ability to control their electronic content. In an orchestrated effort to halt search engines from pulling up their content without permission, the World Association of Newspapers, the European Publishers Council, the International Publishers Association and the European Newspaper Association released a statement promising that a new service would be tested by the end of the year. The service is expected to prevent the unwanted dissemination of their published content by using software tags to alert search

Google showed a renewed push in its project to scan the full text of book collections throughout the world this week as the company announced a new partnership with one of the largest public university systems in the country. The University of California joined with Google in its the Google Book Search Project, to help scan millions of books, the company announced Tuesday. The support of UC and its 100 libraries across 10 campuses is expected to reinvigorate a project that has garnered much controversy since being introduced to the book industry in October 2004 at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Since December 2004, Google has worked

“Wide open and full of potential” is how Anne Landa, rights and exports manager for Sourcebooks Inc., characterizes the market for licensing international rights. “It is simply about placing the right books with the right people and seeing the whole thing through,” Landa—who works out of her home office in San Diego, Calif.—says about selling licensing rights to publishers around the globe for Sourcebooks. International licensing rights increased 20 percent last year at the Naperville, Ill.-based publisher. Sourcebooks, an independent publisher of more than 900 trade titles, has had books translated into 36 languages and published in 34 countries. Landa says she expects the upward

Handheld E-Book Reading By Donna Loyle, Editor They're getting smaller, smarter and cheaper—all at the same time. In the last year or two, numerous handheld e-book reading devices have hit the market. Innovative features include audio capabilities; built-in dictionaries; revolutionary easy-on-the-eyes type; backlit LCD screens; highlighting ability; direct Internet connections; and much more. While this article does not cover all of the e-book readers available (for example, many e-titles can be read on Palm PDAs, which are not marketed as e-book reading units), the information below offers a quick roundup of some of the latest and coolest devices recently introduced. RCA REB1100