Book Fairs - by Lynette Owen
Book fairs
Lynette Owen, Copyright Director, Pearson Education Ltd
Book fairs are key events in the publishing world calendar, providing a meeting
place for publishers, agents, distributors and retailers to pursue their business
on a face-to-face basis; authors may also attend for book launches and cultural
events. Some book fairs admit the public, who can attend literary events and in
some cases purchase books at a discount.
Rights trading is a major feature of many book fairs. Although this business
is conducted year-round by letter, telephone and email, book fairs provide a
focus for new titles on offer. The key fairs for rights business are: Frankfurt, held
in October and covering all types of publication and featuring exhibitors from all
over the world; Bologna, from 2008 held in late March and covering children’s
books and some educational publications; and London, now held in mid-April.
BookExpo America, held in early June and alternating between New York
and other US cities, is primarily an event for US publishers to showcase their new
publications to the US book trade, but it provides an opportunity for British and
other publishers to meet US publishers on home territory.
Other fairs in western Europe have varying roles: Salon du Livre (in Paris
in March) and Göteborg (late September) are largely cultural events, whilst
Liber (held immediately before Frankfurt and alternating between Madrid and
Barcelona) is primarily a forum for Latin American publishers to meet Spanish
publishers.
In central and eastern Europe there are now many fairs, although most
are ‘selling fairs’ for local publishers to sell books to the visiting public. The
Warsaw fair, held every year in May, provides a rights forum, whilst the Moscow
International Book fair (early September) provides an opportunity to meet many
Russian publishers who do not always attend western book fairs. Fairs have also
been established in Prague, Budapest and the Baltic states, where the book fair
rotates between Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. In the Balkans there are fairs in
Belgrade, Bucharest and most recently in Thessaloniki.
Further afield there are book fairs in Calcutta and Delhi (sales rather than
rights events), Seoul, Tokyo and Beijing. Beijing is a major rights fair and Tokyo is
seeking to build up this aspect of its business. In Latin America, Guadalajara is
being promoted as a rights event. The Cape Town book fair, first held in 2006, is
hoping to establish itself as a pan-African rights forum.
Literary agents and publishing rights staff start work on book fairs early and
appointments are planned and confirmed many weeks before the event itself.
Random callers may be accommodated, but prebooked appointments are now
the order of the day.
Rights sellers attend book fairs armed with information and material on
existing and forthcoming projects and work under considerable pressure; usually
no more than half an hour is available for each appointment. Traditionally,
sellers remain based on their own stand or in an agents’ centre, whilst buyers
move around the fair from meeting to meeting. The physical conditions at some
fairs leave much to be desired! A rights appointment will usually start with a
discussion of any outstanding business, followed by a presentation of new projects; the rights seller will aim to select titles appropriate to the customer and may be switching languages from appointment to appointment. Projects may be offered on the basis of an exclusive option (more common for academic and professional titles, where the potential buyer will need time to obtain specialist reviews), multiple submission to more than one potential buyer, or a full-scale
auction where would-be buyers will have to compete with each other on the basis
of terms set by the seller.
Although rights trading is conducted all year round and has been much
facilitated by email, book fairs remain extremely important as much rights
business depends on personal relationships, knowledge of the taste of the
potential buyer (particularly important in trade publishing) and face-to-face
discussions. Business is often extended beyond a full working day at the fair with
breakfast meetings, receptions and dinner after the fair; publishers are social
animals and many a deal has come about as a result of a chance encounter in less
formal circumstances than a fair appointment. Much business, particularly for
trade titles, may be conducted before and after the fair itself in hotels and offices.
The period after a book fair is usually extremely busy, and traditionally
the onus is on the rights seller to follow up with each customer promptly after
the fair, confirming what has been agreed, drawing up contracts for any deals
finalized at the fair and providing any information or sample material promised
to the potential buyer. For educational, academic and professional titles,
decisions tend to be taken some weeks or months after the fair itself – for trade
titles, decisions may be made more quickly.
In the age of the internet, conference calls and videoconferencing, the future
value of book fairs has sometimes been questioned, but most publishers would
agree that they remain hugely important events and that ‘virtual’ events would
not be an adequate substitute for regular personal contact and the buzz of a well-run
book fair.
Clark and Phillips, Inside Book Publishing, 2008, pages 222-3
