The Frankfurt Book Fair Pre-Departure Meet, New Delhi is an initiative aimed at providing insider tips and tricks to participants before they head out to the fair. This year’s Frankfurt Book Fair Pre-Departure Meet, New Delhi brought to light some ideas and strategies to help the exhibitors and business visitors stand out at the book fair. German Book Office New Delhi’s project manager Angela Albert highlighted some crucial to-do’s and how-to’s for the fair as a part of her presentation. GBO New Delhi director Prashasti Rastogi was in conversation with Kapil Kapoor, director, Roli Book; Manasi Subramaniam, senior commissioning editor, Penguin-Random House India; and, Mudit Mohini, owner, Vishv Books. The panel shared their experiences of multiple years, and some insider tips and tricks for international business development opportunities at FBF 2017.
Important things to do and how to do them
Angela Albert’s presentation at Frankfurt Book Fair Pre-Departure Meet provided a number of vital insights that will help participants prep up in advance. She advised that from July onwards, participants need to interact with publishers and agents that they have identified and book their appointments so as to be able to meet them at the book fair in person. They would be at advantage if they finalized their schedules by the end of September and they should also share their stand number information for appointments. It is important to write a brief covering note introducing themselves, their businesses and the work they do and include a link on their catalog. The Rights & Licenses training participants need to create a separate rights catalog, include key information like number of copies sold, excerpts from positive reviews, author information, a picture of the book cover, a preview of some inner pages for illustrated books and other details.
Angela Albert, project manager, German Book Office New Delhi, making her presentation at the Frankfurt Book Fair Pre-Departure Meet
Networking should be a prime objective
Albert said that taking advantage of the conferences at the book fair should be a prime objective of all participants. The Frankfurt Rights Meeting is the conference to be in for all rights and licensing purposes while they can look forward to valuable tips from the top market performers at a program titled ‘The Markets.’ Another event not to be missed is ‘The Arts+,’ the business festival for the creative industry. Beyond the conferences, participants can look forward to the Business Breakfast, the Business Club Hot Spot Bookfest for after-hours networking where great partnerships are formed.
Publishers Training Programme for Young Professionals 2017
This year’s Publishers Training Programme for Young Professionals will begin with participants bringing five books from their backlists, which have diverse dissemination potential. The participants will do a copyright assessment on the books they choose and will work on a plan to maximize the potential of the existing content. This analysis will be covered under various aspects of product transformation, intellectual property rights (IPR) and data driven marketing strategies.
The publishing industry is going through a revolution in trying to cope up with new-age content-publishing channels. Internet is not a catalyst anymore but a content-publishing option itself changing the playing field for traditional publishing. When creativity in publishing content is the key to survival, factors such as time, resources and economics are working against it. The surplus supply of content has led to a paradox where no one wants to pay for mediocre content and it’s becoming harder to judge what good content is. Therefore, it becomes important for the content publishers to equip themselves with the strategies for 360°degree utilization of content.
