Writers Magazine 2008

Frankfurt

A view from the floor of the biggest book fair in the world

I suspect that if you assembled all the literary festivals and book fairs from around the whole of Europe they could fit into the space occupied by the Frankfurt Book Fair and there would be room for a few football pitches. The Frankfurt Book Fair is big.

It is multi-layer which means you constantly going up or down escalators between the many floors and riding the walkways reminiscent of airport transits as you move between the halls. But it is also multi-layered in terms of what you are going to find at the Fair.

There are, of course, a very large number of books: A very, very large number of books. For anybody aspiring to have their work published and read, this display of plenty could be depressing. There is a lot of competition. However, the other view is that the reason so many people are investing their time and money to produce books is because readers are still investing their time and spending money in buying and reading lots of books.

The size and success of a show like Frankfurt should send the message to writers that there are lots of people out there who want to read books. So don’t be deterred by the fact that around the world this year between a third and a half a million new titles will appear. The figure depends on whose figures you believe and how you define ‘new’. There are lots of new readers out there and not all of them live in the countries we think of as speaking English.

While the main halls are filled by the industry pitching existing books to the distribution channels, the agents and commissioning editors are sorting out next year’s titles. On the top floor in one of the halls near the heart of the fair you will find a closed area where literary agents and scouts trade the rights for books. No point turning up to pitch your books there. The security is tight. You will need to know somebody on the inside, or have an appointment, but it’s still not worth getting in as this is really a place for insiders only, and not for writers. If you have an agent, it might be worth making sure they know what you are working on so they can fine tune their antennae.

Frankfurt is international. Turkey was the featured country and produced some exceptional works in translation. They were not alone. China was well represented. But many other countries were presenting their works in translation. A large part of one floor was devoted to translators and it was interesting to sit down and discover the issues raised. (An article on there on that part of the book business will be forthcoming shortly.) Many governments are offering awards and incentives to encourage translations so we might be seeing a lot more works from other literary traditions appearing in the English language. I certainly hope so.

There was very little modern technology. The new e-readers from Sony and Amazon were only to be found in the hands of some users but the limited battery meant that they almost immediately flashed ‘flat-battery’ every time I had a go. The new Sony reader was not even on their own stand where they were offering services rather than their new hardware.

Frankfurt opened itself to the general public and the young from schools and colleges this year which did clog certain halls and their focus was on collecting freebies. These little swarms moved from one place to another, working to a clear agenda, having studied the programme of appearances to grab a picture and the goodies before rushing on. I am told the mobile phone network was near breakdown as they tried to tell each other where they should be heading next.

Talking of presentations, these went on continuously on most of the major stands. Interpreters were on hand to help the English language speakers.

Even though consumer spending is under pressure in many parts of the world, people are still consuming books, but it might be worth thinking about how your work could appeal to a global market.

© Chas Jones 2008

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