By Andrew Wilkins

Audience at Publishers Launch Conference in Frankfurt

If there’s been one clearly identifiable trend at Frankfurt Book Fair over the past 15 years, it has been to both start and end the fair earlier and earlier.

Remember when Monday was the final day of exhibition? That finished in 2003, and nowadays it’s hard to find any but the hardiest rights executive still taking meetings on the Sunday.

But now visitors have a reason to come to the fair—which officially opens on a Wednesday—as early as Monday morning: the Publishers Launch Frankfurt conference, part of the Frankfurt Academy professional development program.

Entitled “Ebooks Around the World,” the conference attempted to provide a global perspective to an e-book market that until now has only truly taken off in North America and South Korea (although Europe and the United Kingdom are forming a convincing “second wave,” according to the results of a recent AT Kearney/bookrepublic survey shared with delegates).