The recent series of international book fairs on European soil have shown that these fairs are increasingly connected and interacting with each other. The first in this series, the Brussels Book Fair running from 9 to 13 March 2017, was larger than ever before, with more than 200 spacious stands, 70,000 visitors, and a literary program running until the end of the month, in sync with the Salon du livre in Paris, both addressing the French-language book market and related translation rights. Renamed Livre Paris, the 125-year-old Paris fair with close to 900 exhibitors, attracted 150,000 visitors between 24 and 27 March. While the Brussels fair has mainly been a free event for the general public, access to the Paris fair was divided between the general public in the afternoons and professionals-only in the mornings. Usually, a small number of publishing service providers attends these fairs, also from India, but this time only a few of these came, without hiring a booth. The only exhibitors from Asia in Paris were two Chinese distributors and five Japanese publishing and trading houses.
Capexil backs Indians at LBF again
In the meantime, the London Book Fair, running from 14 to 16 March with a strong emphasis on kid content and restricted to book professionals, brought together 1,523 exhibitors, of whom more than onethird (543) were service providers, and some 25,000 were visitors. On the exhibitor side, the largest contingents represented the book industries of the UK (586), the USA (245), France (76), India (70), Germany (65), and market focus Poland (56), followed by Canada, Russia, Italy and Switzerland (30-35 each). From the Asia-Pacific region, 58 exhibitors made it to London, including 20 from China, 12 from Australia, 11 based in Singapore, 7 from South Korea, and 8 from Japan, Indonesia, Pakistan and Thailand.
After a gap of three years, Capexil once again co-opted a large number of publishers and industry providers for an Indian book industry cluster. Four Capexil stands were shared by 17 publishers, 10 digital service providers, 3 printers and 6 other trade and support organizations, including the National Book Trust, Sahitya Akademi, and the Federation of Indian Publishers. In addition, the individual exhibitors from India comprised 14 publishers, 10 digital service providers, 6 printers, 3 distributors and one literary agency, Red Ink. Anticipating and preparing for some of the rights trading in Bologna, LBF 2017 concluded with a day of children’s books rights exchange organized by Children’s Media Conference (CMC) staged by the UK publishing industry every two years. In a collaboration with Nielsen Book, LBF also organized a Children’s Summit with authors of children’s books Michael Morpurgo and Andrzej Sapkowski. In an award ceremony on the fair’s second day, the Bookaroo Festival of Children’s Literature won LBF’s Literary Festival Award. Started nine years ago, the Bookaroo festival has been held 21 times so far, in eight cities: New Delhi, Pune, Goa, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Srinagar and Kolkata, as well as in Kuching, Malaysia.
Leipzig
Virtually in parallel with the fair in Paris, the Leipzig Book Fair took place from 23 to 26 March, gathering 1,700 exhibitors and 260,000 visitors. The publishing industries from South Korea and Taiwan each had a large representation at the fair, which is an event for both the general public and professionals. Just like every year, the fair had distinctive programs for book sellers, publishers, authors, editors and translators. For the German-language and related translation markets, many deals and publishing projects are prepared here and concluded at the Frankfurt Book Fair later in the year, leaving six months to finalize projects. Hence the strong presence of French book professionals both in Leipzig and London, in the run-up to their Guest-of-Honour appearance at the upcoming Frankfurt Book Fair. Children’s books made up one of the major themes in Leipzig, with a particular focus on manga comics and related digital games and merchandising businesses.
Bologna Children’s Book Fair
Later in the year than usual, the Bologna Children’s Book Fair ran from 3 to 6 April, with 1,300 exhibitors and 25,000 visitors. This fair, primarily a rights trading fair for book professionals but meanwhile opened to the general public as well, traditionally takes place before the London Book Fair, where many of the deals prepared in Bologna are then concluded. The roles were inverted for the first time, this year, facilitating preparations during the earlier fairs closing the deals at Bologna. Apparently, exchange between trading partners at book fairs has become less dependent on the actual signing of contracts, which more often takes place by eMail or at meetings far away from the fairs’ razzmatazz. The organizers of the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, BolognaFiere, announced their start of a new copyright trade and licensing fair in New York dedicated to publishing, international rights and licensing. Its first edition will take place from 20 May to 1 June 2018 in midtown Manhattan. The twenty some Indian exhibitors in Bologna consisted of 16 publishers, two distributors, one printer and one premedia company, many of whom can be found at the book fairs of London and Abu Dhabi as well. The other exhibitors from Asia included 6 from Japan, 5 from China, 4 from South Korea and 2 from Singapore. The separately organized Bologna Licensing Trade Fair moved an increasing number of exhibitors from the actual book fair, representing close to 1,000 brands in merchandising products particularly geared at kids and teenagers, with anything from Disney key rings to digital Pokemon games. Officially heading under European companies, most of these products are sourced in China, South Korea and other Asian low-cost supplier zones. Both London and the other fairs showed a tendency of ever-increasing and multiple copublishing collaborations, particularly in the non-fiction, technical and academic market segments. In the four different language markets represented by these fairs, Kluwer, for instance, has been co-publishing together with small local university presses in order to keep publishing projects more affordable and thus sustainable for both sides. The next London Book Fair will be staged on 10 to 12 April 2018 and unlike this year, the next Bologna Children’s Book Fair will once again precede it by three weeks, and will take place from 19 to 22 March 2018.
