Changing trends at book fairs

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Book fairs always seem to bring cheer to the publishing industry. The Frankfurt Book Fair (October 12-16, 2011) was as grand as ever – with 7,384 exhibitors from 106 countries and 2,80,194 visitors – the show lived upto its expectations. But, it was not just books that vied for attention, there were players from the digital publishing services, computer games production, etc. Since, books are not just printed products now, there were legal and financial consultants for crossmedial products as well. In short, everything and everybody related to content in one form or other were there. And sales were not limited to the physical books, there were good number of sale of licenses for books, translations, reprint rights, etc.

Another major trend seen was the increasing role of literary agents – both publishers as well as authors find it convenient to work with the agents. The publishing industry finally seems to be growing in a more organized manner!

The participation from India was phenomenal – with over 75 exhibitors displaying their creations at the show. Most of them were happy with the response they got at the show, proving that the Indian publishing industry is definitely going global with much large scope to grow.

Another upcoming show is the New Delhi World Book Fair (February 25-March 04, 2012), which has been earning the reputation for offering international rights initiatives on a particular theme – in 2008, it was ‘Mahatma Gandhi;’ in 2010, it was the ‘Sports’ and the year 2012 will see an international rights exhibition on books on ‘Indian Cinema.’ Like all forms of art – cinema too has no boundaries and with the use of sub-titles and dubbing options, language is no barrier. Indian movies – Bollywood, Tollywood, etc are quite popular in foreign countries and publishers from overseas would definitely be interested in publishing books on Indian cinema. We hope that the show would attract the right target audience in good number, with the exhibitors focusing not just on retail sales but also on rights, etc.

Kudos to the Indian publishing industry!