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06 October 2004
the Buchmesse begins!
Today was the opening day of the annual Frankfurt Book Fair. I used to attend, and though I don't miss the stale air, cigarette smoke, or the surly attendants at the vending stands, I do miss the camaraderie, seeing "Frankfurt friends" (sitting across a table, even a teeny tiny one in a booth, is better than fax and email), and the history of it all.
Frankfurt is a rights fair, meaning that publication and ancillary rights are bought and sold, or at least offered and considered. Over several days, 6,691 individual exhibitors from 110 countries present more than 350,000 titles to fellow publishers; on the weekend, the public can purchase tickets and be admitted for a peek at some of the titles that will be hitting store shelves in the coming months. We don't have anything like it here--the BookExpo show is primarily a sales event, not a rights event--and I'm hoping that I'll be able to take Terrence to the Fair one day so he can see firsthand what all the hubbub is about.
There's also a nice temporal tie-in with the announcement of the Nobel Prize for literature, and the publisher(s) of the winning author tend to get a lot of business and genuine congratulations. One doesn't know going to the Fair who the winner will be, so there's a bit of suspense that adds to the excitement. The announcement is scheduled for tomorrow (1:00pm Stockholm time at the earliest says the Nobel web site)...