
At the 2006 Frankfurter Buchmesse. Image: FBM, Peter Hirth
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
See our complete guide to Frankfurter Buchmesse 2020 here. It has our latest stories, event highlights, our free digital magazine, and more.
Digital Adoption, Academics, and World Rights
Our annual series of Publishing Perspectives Talks returns this year in Frankfurter Buchmesse‘s digital edition (October 14 to 18) with three targeted sessions and insightful speakers to address each of them.Here’s a quick rundown so you can add them to your list. We hope you’ll join us.
All three sessions are at the same time on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, easily added to your calendar at:
6 p.m. CEST
1600 GMT
5 p.m. BST
12 p.m. noon ET
Where To See the Events
These can all be found as part of the B2B Events group of programming.
Scroll down to the four-day listing of events, and click into the one you want to see.
Remember, you need a My Book Fair (free) registration to see the trade show’s offerings this year, so start there to get set up for the whole week.
Tuesday, October 13
Digital Format Adoption and the Pandemic

From left, speakers in this panel are Videl Bar-Kar, Michele Cobb, Kristen McLean, and Michael Tamblyn
With:
- Videl Bar-Kar, global head of audio, Bookwire
- Michele Cobb, executive director, Audio Publishers Association
- Kristen McLean, executive director of business development, NPD Book
- Michael Tamblyn, CEO , Rakuten Kobo
In many world publishing markets, ebooks and audiobooks saw strong increases in sales during coronavirus pandemic lockdowns. Streaming and downloads are not only faster than physical delivery but they are also safe: no contact. But have the conditions of the health emergency prompted consumers to adopt digital formats on an accelerated schedule? Or will most of those newer digital-format users go back to print? Join us for a lively round of insights from our specialists.
Wednesday, October 14
Academic Publishing Leaders

From left, Steven Inchcoombe, Michiel Kolman, and Jay Flynn
With:
- Steven Inchcoombe, chief publishing and aolutions officer, Springer Nature
- Michiel Kolman, senior vice-president of information, industry relations and academic ambassador, Elsevier
- Jay Flynn, chief product officer of research, Wiley
Executives at the world’s leading academic and scholarly publishing companies come together to exchange experiences and insights dealing with the most important issues facing their businesses today, including open access, transformative agreements, sustainability, and more.
Thursday, October 15
Promoting a Nation’s Literature Worldwide

From left, Fernanda Dantas, Ricardo Franco Levi, and Tiia Strandén
With:
- Fernanda Dantas, manager, Brazilian Publishers
- Ricardo Franco Levi, president, Associazione Italiana degli Editori
- Tiia Strandén, director, Finnish Literature Exchange, FILI
As the importance of international rights-sale revenue rises for publishers, more and more national-level collective rights programs are appearing on the scene — cooperative efforts that can raise all their publishers’ visibility together. In this session we talk to one very well established site of this kind and two just entering the world market this year for their insights, observations, and tips on how to benefit from their shared market energy.
More from Publishing Perspectives on Frankfurter Buchmesse is here and more from us on the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on international book publishing is here.
Don’t miss our new magazine for the Frankfurter Buchmesse Special Edition, which has news and updates from international industry trends to curated guides to the online events during this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair.
Frankfurt Through a Screen offers you the information you need to make the most of the fair and the rest of 2020.
Find information on international markets, trade, educational, and academic publishing, copyright issues, world reports from the International Publishers Association, and news of Frankfurt’s Guest of Honor markets.