A packed Frankfurt Pavilion audience of trade visitors joined a 70th-anniversary celebration of the Zurich-based publisher Diogenes Verlag on the Messe Frankfurt Agora near Hall 4. Image: FBM, Ingo Hattendorf
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
Also see this update: Frankfurt 2022: 180,000 Trade and Public Visitors
Exhibitors at Frankfurt This Week Represent 95 Nations
As members of the public arrive in growing numbers this weekend (October 22 and 23) at Frankfurter Buchmesse, the trade show’s administration has released early numbers on a larger-than-expected attendance level for the official trade days.
At this stage in the reporting, Frankfurt is reporting some 90,000 trade visitors from more than 100 nations.
Frankfurt president and CEO Juergen Boos says, “A strong international trade program and 4,000 exhibitors from 95 countries have drawn numerous trade visitors to Frankfurter Buchmesse.
“The number of visitors exceeded our expectations.
Juergen Boos
“After two reduced versions in 2020 and 2021, the 74th Frankfurter Buchmesse was finally able to take place fully in person once again. With approximately 90,000 trade visitors from more than 100 countries, we view the trade visitor days as a success.”
Our Publishing Perspectives Forum made its debut this week with two days of programming that presented a total 38 speakers across 12 hours of programming in panels and one-on-one interviews.
The administration now is reporting an audience figure of some 1,700 trade and exhibitor attendees for our Forum programming, which was devised with an intentional business and internationalist emphasis, headlined by:
- Charlie Redmayne, CEO of HarperCollins UK
- Jonny Geller, CEO of the Curtis Brown Group
- Núria Cabutí, CEO of Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial
- Peter Warwick, president and CEO of Scholastic
- Clemens Maier, CEO of Ravensburger
- Juergen Boos, president and CEO of Frankfurter Buchmesse
- Trasvin Jittidecharak, founder of Thailand’s Silkworm Books and International Publishers Association (IPA) Freedom to Publish committee member
- Niko Pfund, president and academic publisher of Oxford University Press
- Jens Klingelhöfer, co-founding CEO of Bookwire
The Publishing Perspectives Forum audience for an early-afternoon program on audiobooks. Image: FBM, Ingo Hattendorf
As Many as 60 Publishers Book Almost 200 Workstations
With the Literary Agents & Scouts Centre (LitAg) fully booked by approximately 300 agencies at a reported 456 tables, Tom Tivnan at the Booker Prize for Fiction’s base-market news medium of record The Bookseller has reported on an auction for the translation rights of Booker Prize winner Shenan Karunatilaka’s book The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida taking place at the LitAg.
It’s reported that publishers from Poland, Portugal, Hungary, Japan, Brazil, Serbia, Turkey, and Spain now are in auctions for translation rights in their countries.
Rowohlt Verlag had secured the German rights to the title before the fair. Karunatilaka is represented in the United Kingdom by the agency Peters Frazer and Dunlop.
There was also strong demand for the workstations that Frankfurt debuted last year in its physical-and-digital edition, with some 60 exhibitors booking close to 200 workstations, in some cases in addition to their exhibition stands.
The trade visitor days were also accompanied by a digital trade program through the Masterclasses series and the digital networking format “The Hof,” which gave industry professionals an opportunity to maintain and expand their networks digitally.
This is Publishing Perspectives’ 182nd awards report published in the 189 days since our 2022 operations began on January 3.
More updates are being added to this article.
In Frankfurter Buchmesse’s Translation Center, part of the trade show’s over-arching thematic programming for 2022. Image: FBM, Marc Jacquemin
Our Frankfurter Buchmesse Show Magazine now is out—in print on the Messe Frankfurt for trade visitors and exhibitors, and here in a free digital download for our world readership online.
The magazine has extensive coverage of issues and trends that are leading discussions and debates at the trade show this year, along with interviews, profiles, and commentary in this strongly attended Frankfurt year. Click here for your download (PDF).
More on Frankfurter Buchmesse is here, more on the international rights trade is here, more on this year’s Guest of Honor Spain is here, more on guest of honor programs and markets is here, more on international book fairs is here, and more on industry statistics is here.
Publishing Perspectives is the global media partner of the International Publishers Association. Porter Anderson is the former Associate Editor of The Bookseller’s FutureBook.
More from us on the still ongoing coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on international book publishing is here.