At the fore
October 12, 2011
"Everyone comes to Frankfurt, because everyone comes to Frankfurt!" It's a corny line that perhaps alludes to Frankfurt's international airport, but it also hints at the secret to the long-running success of the Frankfurt Book Fair, which runs from October 12 to 16 this year.
Book store representatives, droves of employees from publishing houses, librarians, literary agents and - above all - authors and book lovers flock to the city on the Main River in October each year. The media also make their mark at the event, with more media professionals on hand than at either the Olympic Games or the soccer World Cup.
What sets Frankfurt apart, though? Although most countries in Europe, Asia and the Americas have their own book fairs, only the Frankfurt Book Fair provides the opportunity to meet and network with the most important people active in literature across the world. Twice as many British exhibitors come to the fair in Frankfurt as attend similar events in London. More French exhibitors come to Frankfurt than go to Paris. Two-thirds of the exhibitors in Frankfurt come from abroad, making the fair a truly international event.
Back to the Middle Ages
Frankfurt's fair is the largest in the world, but it also looks back on a proud tradition: Manuscripts have been traded at fairs in Frankfurt since the late Middle Ages. After Johannes Gutenberg invented the letterpress in the neighboring town of Mainz in the 15th century, he came to Frankfurt to sell his products. Even then, printers and book traders made their way from across Europe to Frankfurt, and a special "Book Barge" from Cologne helped ferry visitors from Flanders to the event.
This pan-European book trade, the center of which was Frankfurt, was possible due to Latin's role as the lingua franca of the time. But the Reformation changed that, heralding a new era of book publishing in national languages. The Reformation also brought the Kaiser as an advocate of Catholic interests into play, and as a free imperial city, Frankfurt quickly became a focal point of attention. Whoever wanted to trade in books was forced to comply with draconian censorship regulations. This pushed Frankfurt aside, making way for a new center of European book trading to flourish in Protestant Leipzig. Frankfurt's book fairs closed in the 18th century.
Post-war return
In 1949, the German Publishers and Booksellers Association decided to hold a book fair in Frankfurt once again. The fair quickly grew in size and standing. In 1964, the Association founded their own company to transform the fair into a truly global event. Aside from the classical "book states" in Europe and North America, the participation of exhibitors from Latin America, Asia, Africa and Oceania grew in scale. The Frankfurt Book Fair even helped anticipate the gradual opening-up of countries in the zone of Soviet influence.
Today over 7,000 companies from around 100 countries regularly exhibit in Frankfurt. A large part of the continuing success of the Frankfurt Book Fair is due to the organizers' ability to keep in step with the latest trends and developments in the global literary market. The internationalization of the book trade is reflected in a series that focuses on literary trends in countries selected each year. Electronic media have been an increasingly important theme since the middle of the 1990s, and in 2003, the book fair opened to the film and television industries. It now hosts numerous event forums that emphasize the marketing of books as one of the fair's key attractions.
Ups and downs
While the book fair was an important place to order books from booksellers up through the 1980s, today only a small number of booksellers exhibit at the fair. Of the 300,000 visitors flooding through the gates each year, less than 2 percent are booksellers.
In the last few years, the growing absence of buyers has become a big problem for the Frankfurt Book Fair. Small and middle-sized publishing houses are no longer under any illusions as to the economic feasibility of an appearance at the fair. For the event, this development means that growth opportunities have to be found elsewhere, so organizers have pursued a strategy of internationalization since 2003, partnering with other events like the Cape Town Book Fair since 2006 and getting involved in hosting the Abu Dhabi Book Fair. Organizers are now looking at possible partnerships in Brazil.
In 2006, however, an attempt to sweep the London Book Fair from the market with a rival event failed miserably - just a footnote in the latest chapter of the event's centuries-long history of ups and downs.
Author: Holger Ehling / hw
Editor: Greg Wiser