A news conference at Rome’s La Nuvola for the 2017 Più libri più liberi, with the Italian Publishers Association’s (AIE) participation. Image: Più libri più liberi, Musacchio, Ianniello & Pasqualini
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
A Three-Day Professional Program
This year’s public-facing Italian book fair featuring small- and medium-sized publishing companies–called Più libri più liberi–is scheduled to open Wednesday (December 7) and run to December 11, again at Rome’s La Nuvola, “The Cloud.”
Its programming includes an extensive professional program developed and presented on December 7, 8, and 9 by the Association of Italian Publishers (Associazione Italiana Editori, AIE) and Aldus Up, which has financing from the European Commission through Creative Europe. Many of the sessions, in fact, in as space named Aldus Hall for the occasion.
Among the key elements is a focus on December 8 at 11:30 a.m. CET in Aldus Hall on “Social Networks That Are Changing the Market.” In this hour, attendees will hear about new analysis of how Italians use social media to find reading recommendations. From that study, we get that:
- Instagram is the platform cited by 54 percent of respondents asked
- Facebook is cited by 53 percent as bookish platform of choice
- YouTube is third, at 29 percent
- TikTok, for all the chatter about its BookTok influence, is at 26 percent, and has a younger user base, of course
That conversation features moderator Riccardo De Palo of The Messenger with Lisa Ceccarelli (Hoepli), Modestina Cedola (Minimum Fax), and Cristina Mussinelli (AIE Studies Office), who joined us at Frankfurter Buchmesse in October for a Frankfurt Studio event devised by the LIA Foundation and Aldus Up, “Accessibility in Action: Three Challenges for the Publishing Industry.”
In fact, another session at Più libri più liberi is organized with AIE by TikTok is called “The Power of Digital Word-of-Mouth for the World of Publishing and Culture” on December 7 at 3 p.m. CET, again in Aldus Hall. In this case, the speakers are Lucia Borgonzoni (undersecretary of the state ministry of culture), Onofrio Cutaia (general director of the Contemporary Creativity division of the ministry of culture), Matilde Becatti (Il Castoro), Luana Lavecchia (TikTok), Annamaria Malato (the president of Più libri più libera) and Mussinelli (AIE Studies Office).
We’d also call your attention to a meeting scheduled for 2 p.m. CET on December 8, “Who Is In the Standings.” The session, developed by AIE and Giornale della libreria with Nielsen BookScan and is an examination of book ranking services, those ubiquitous lists and charts. How are they produced in Italy, and what has changed since their inception there in the 1980s?–and are they still a worthwhile marketing tool for publishing houses?
That session features Emanuele Di Giorgi (Tunuè), Monica Manzotti (Nielsen BookScan), Enrico Quaglia (NW Takeaway Books), and Alessandra Rotondo (Bookshop Newspaper).
Luis González
And late in the day on December 8, at 6 p.m. CET in Aldus Hall, look for “Toward a Europe of Readers” with the Fundación Germán Sánchez Ruipérez’ director general Luis Gonzalez, who just joined Publishing Perspectives on a panel in Indonesia at Jakarta’s International Publishers Association‘s (IPA) 33rd International Publishers Congress.
Piero Attanasio of AIE moderates this session which looks at something Gonzalez discussed in Jakarta, the Aldus Up-led effort to help Europe define “coherent surveys” that provide a comparative picture of publishing and reading activities across national borders. Italy, Norway, and Spain have led the way with a pilot survey using a harmonized questionnaire and administrative criteria, to see how well mutually comparative data can be surfaced in different markets—an effort needed far more broadly in world publishing than just in Europe.
Ricardo Franco Levi
With Attanasio and Gonzalez will be speakers Massimo Pronio (head of communication for Italy in the context of the European Commission) and Enrico Turrin (Federation of European Publishers).
Più libri più liberi includes a rights trading center, and a special meeting in English for participating non-Italian publishing professionals on December 7 at 9 a.m. CET in the auditorium, with the participation of Bologna Children’s Book Fair.
Juergen Boos
And Frankfurter Buchmesse president and CEO Juergen Boos joins Ricardo Franco Levi, president of the AIE and of the Federation of European Publishers, at 12:30 p.m. CET on December 8 in Aldus Hall for a conversation called “From Paris to Frankfurt,” focused on the fact that Guest of Honor Italy at Frankfurt in 2024 is also “guest country of honor” at the Festival du Livre de Paris.
The full list of professional program events set for Più libri più liberi can be found here, along with public-facing event listings, as well.
Image: Più libri più liberi
More from us on the Italian market is here, more on Rome’s Piu libri piu liberi is here, more on the work of the Italian Publishers Association is here, more on the International Publishers Association is here, more on Frankfurter Buchmesse is here, and more on guest of honor programs is here, more on book fairs and trade shows is here, more on industry statistics is here.
Publishing Perspectives is the world media partner of the International Publishers Association.