Shanghai International Children’s Book Fair reveals ambitious plans for 2015

Organisers of the Shanghai International Children’s Book Fair have revealed ambitious expansion plans for the 2015 edition, the only fair of its type in the Asia-Pacific region. The dramatic growth of the Fair, after just two years of existence, reflects the soaring demand for international children’s titles, and in particular, multimedia and digital content.

The fair takes place from November 13-15, 2015 at the Shanghai World Expo Centre, which accommodated over 25,000 visitors in 2014 and hopefully will welcome up to 30,000 people this year. Major names in the children’s publishing industry from the UK, USA, Europe and the Far East are expected to be represented, together with a strong line-up of Chinese publishers.

The fair provides a one-stop shop for publishers, agents, authors and illustrators wanting to enter the China’s buoyant children’s publishing sector, with all types of content represented, including educational, ‘edutainment’, picture books and digital.

With the Chinese pavilion already sold out, the ambition for 2015 is to boost the international content of the Fair, according to CCBF Fair Director Randy Wang, “The increasing demand by Chinese consumers for children’s books means that there are many opportunities for non-Chinese publishers. As a result we are planning to welcome publishers from around 30 countries, together with authors and illustrators who will get the chance to meet young readers at our hugely popular public events”.

“Sale of children’s book is enjoying double digit growth in China and regularly feature in best-seller lists across all genres. In particular we are seeing a rapid shift towards titles that cross media boundaries into TV, film, games and apps, often preceding success in print.

Titles like ‘Dad! Where are we going?’ which started life as a TV reality show, are now hugely successful across all publishing platforms.”