Juergen Boos, now in his 20th year as president and CEO of Frankfurter Buchmesse, at the Hall 5.0 collective stand of Guest of Honor Italy. Image: Holger Menzel
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
Exhibitors Up 7.5 Percent, at 4,300
Professional trade-visitor attendance is up 9 percent over last year’s figures here in Germany at the world’s largest international book-publishing trade show, Frankfurter Buchmesse.
- This year’s figures calculated on the 2024 “Frankfurt Friday” (October 18): 114,000 trade visitors from 131 countries.
- Last year’s parallel figures, by comparison, were 105,000 trade visit0rs from 130 countries.
This is called Buchmesse’s “midway” report, because today at 2 p.m. CEST, the 76th Frankfurter Buchmesse of the modern era opened its gates to its public visitors, as it does each year, signaling the end of the professionals-only three days for the world book industry.
More than 4,300 exhibitors are here, presenting their books, other products, and services. That’s a 7.5-percent increase over 2023’s 4,000 exhibitors.
What’s more, the first full day of the public-entry stage, Saturday (October 19)—according to Frankfurt’s president and CEO Juergen Boos in an interview this afternoon with Publishing Perspectives—is already sold out, all tickets for Saturday distributed online. (There are Buchmesse tickets still available for Sunday, October 20, the 2024 trade show’s final day.)
Frankfurt’s Literary Agents & Scouts Center (LitAg) and the Publishers Rights Center sold out before the fair started—a total 593 tables were booked by 320 agencies from 31 countries.
Significant rights deals at the fair reportedly have included a memoir by the formerly imprisoned Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich (#IStandWithEvan); the international acquisition of three historical novels from Philippa Gregory; and “The Rainshadow Orphans” fantasy trilogy from the British writer Naomi Ishiguro.
Fifteen Stages in Operation
David Shelley, CEO of both Hachette UK and the United States’ Hachette Book Group, in conversation onstage in Frankfurter Buchmesse’s 2024 Publishing Perspectives Forum. Image: FBM, Marc Jacquemin
As our readers know, the Publishing Perspectives Forum was a component of a 15-stage network of coordinated programing for Frankfurt’s trade show, and—as staffers of our Agora-side Frankfurt Studio venue this year pointed out—the forum’s audiences were frequently at or near capacity.
This was the case, for example, in our onstage interview with David Shelley, the CEO of both Hachette UK and the United States’ Hachette Book Group—a key point of Shelley’s Executive Talk being that the industry is transitioning from a “big book” business to a “big authors” business that’s finding new, robust energy in the release of valuable backlist titles.
Arnaud Nourry was another personable and insightful draw in the Publishing Perspectives Forum’s Executive Talk series. He told another strongly attended session in his onstage interview that he relishes the “disruptive” aspects of his just-opened Les Nouveaux Editeurs venture in Paris. And he added that while an operation like Authors Equity in New York City (which was represented in our forum by co-founder Nina von Moltke) may work with many agents as it develops its work with authors, he is cultivating leading editors who can essentially bring their coteries of authors with them.
Copyright Clearance Center’s CEO Tracey Armstrong looked at the importance of creating responsible solutions and policies for the use of AI to better protect copyright and intellectual property. Also from CCC, Michael Healy joined us in the Publishing Perspectives Forum audience for Scribd c-founder Trip Adler’s unveiling of his new Created by Humans AI rights licensing platform.
Authors, Publishers, and Italy’s Delegation
Authors Yuval Noah Harari and Kohai Saito on Harmonie Hall’s stage at Messe Frankfurt’s Congress Center, moderated by Meredith Haaf and Jens-Christian Rabe. Image: FBM, Marc Jacquemin
International writers appearing at the book fair this week have included bestselling author of Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari, Filipina author and documentary filmmaker Patricia Evangelista; and this year’s recipient of the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, Anne Applebaum.
Publisher Tom Kraushaar of the independent powerhouse Klett-Cotta—publisher of Martina Hefter’s Hey guten Morgen, wie geht es dir? (Hey, Good Morning, How Are You?) has won the 20th German Book Prize this week—was joined by von Moltke of Authors Equity and Amsterdam-based Nelleke Geel in a spirited and candid discussion of independent publishing.
And from this year’s Guest of Honor Italy, more than 90 authors are attending the fair, including the frequently controversial Roberto Saviano, as well as Donatella di Pietrantonio, Antonio Scurati, Francesca Melandri, and Igiaba Scego. The Italian Publishers Association AIE organized a comprehensive trade program, much of which played out to packed audience on the Italian collective stand in Hall 5.0.
In the new formulation of events called “Frankfurt Calling” at the iconic Frankfurt Pavilion, the International Publishers Association (IPA), a remarkably diverse group of freedom-to-publish specialists brought an unusually mixed dynamic of views to the crisis of democracy and reading, with Penguin Random House global general counsel and chief legal officer Anke E. Steinecke on the stage with an articulate Ege Dundar, the youngest person to be elected to the highly influential board of PEN International.
We have much more coverage of Frankfurt 2024 coming after a short break here at Publishing Perspectives to cross oceans and recharge batteries.
Comics in the corridors: Reading Web toons at a service desk at Frankfurter Buchmesse 2024. Image: Publishing Perspectives, Eric Dupuy
Our 2024 Frankfurt Book Fair Magazine, currently being read at Frankfurter Buchmesse by trade visitors, now is available in a digital edition here.
Download your copy here.
You’ll also read our focused coverage of issues and events in the Guest of Honor Italy program; book market trends in Brazil, France, the Philippines, the Czech Republic, and Poland; perspectives on the international rights trade from Matthes & Seitz Berlin’s Meran Mentzel; commentary from independent publishers from Greece, Colombia, and Kenya.
Also read PEN International president emerita Jennifer Clement on censorship ahead of the IPA’s International Publishers Congress; an exit interview with the outgoing IPA president Karine Pansa of Brazil; an interview with Scholastic chief Peter Warwick; perspectives on audio in Italy from Mondadori’s Miriam Spinnato; and more.
More on Frankfurter Buchmesse is here, and more on Guest of Honor Italy 2024 is here. Publishing Perspectives is the International Publishers Association’s world media partner.
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