At Frankfurter Buchmesse: The Markets in Time of Change

In News by Porter Anderson

Tackling what agent Andrew Wylie calls “a profound moral question” in world dynamics, The Markets is an issues-driven conference for a sharply relevant books business.

The Markets: Global Publishing Summit 2016 (Image: Bernd Hartung / Frankfurter Buchmesse)

By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson

‘Networking the World’s Business Cultures’

Frankfurt Tuesday is so busy that it’s hard to remember that the Frankfurter Book Fair’s official dates this year start Wednesday, running October 11-15.

One of the main agenda items on Tuesday, the eve of the trade show, is The Markets, a conference that’s been reconfigured for a half-day program to let attendees get to other events during the day.

Running from 9 a.m. to 1:15 p.m., The Markets is presented by Publishing Perspectives and the Frankfurt Book Fair, and this year is subtitled, “Change: A 360-Degree View.”

Andrew Wylie. Image: FIL Guadalajara, Ana Lorena Mendez

Opening with a keynote address from New York City-based international literary agent Andrew Wylie—who will demand that the books world stare down the forces of nationalism in today’s political furor—the political background in which today’s markets operate will never be far out of sight.

This year’s focal markets:

  • France, 2017 Frankfurter Buchmesse Guest of Honor
  • India
  • Southeast Asia
  • United Kingdom
  • United States

Haemin Sunim

Topics of the day include:

  • Brexit, the negotiation timetables of which are being sharply questioned this week
  • The impact of immigration and its associated dynamics on publishing and where that energy opens up new opportunities for publishers
  • Trends and hunches from expert analysis of consumer directions today
  • The Indian market’s new momentum and growth factors and channels of profit there

Katie Espiner

In addition to networking opportunities, the program features the speakers, including:

  • Jean Mattern, head literary editor for international literature at Éditions Grasset in Paris
  • Katie Espiner, managing director with the UK’s Orion Publishing Group
  • Arief Hakim, managing director of Malaysia’s PTS Media Group
  • Haemin Sunim, Zen monk and international bestselling author
  • André Breedt, London-based managing director of Nielsen Book Research International
  • Ananth Padmanabhan, CEO of HarperCollins India

And, in an unprecedented discussion at The Markets, a group of female executives in publishing will take up the question of why the corporate leadership in so many publishing houses today remains so predominantly male while so much of the workforce is made up of highly capable women.

Sophie de Closets

On that panel:

A PDF of the day’s programming with more details can be found here.

Your membership in Frankfurt Book Fair’s Business Club includes a seat at The Markets. 

About the Author

Porter Anderson

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Porter Anderson is a non-resident fellow of Trends Research & Advisory, and he has been named International Trade Press Journalist of the Year in London Book Fair's International Excellence Awards. He is Editor-in-Chief of Publishing Perspectives. He formerly was Associate Editor for The FutureBook at London's The Bookseller. Anderson was for more than a decade a senior producer and anchor with CNN.com, CNN International, and CNN USA. As an arts critic (National Critics Institute), he was with The Village Voice, the Dallas Times Herald, and the Tampa Tribune, now the Tampa Bay Times. He co-founded The Hot Sheet, a newsletter for authors, which now is owned and operated by Jane Friedman.