An Inspired Guide to the Frankfurt Book Fair!

Excitement is building for this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair and here at Inspired Selection, our FBF team is busily scheduling in meetings with all our attending clients and brushing up on their German phrases!

Our Deputy Managing Director, Donald Smith, is a seasoned Book Fair attendee and has put together an engaging summary along with some top tips to all those who are jetting off next week. This is the first in a series of lead-up campaigns we are running so do keep an eye on our Twitter page too! #FBM14

AN INSPIRED GUIDE TO THE FRANKFURT BOOK FAIR (BUCHMESSE), by Donald Smith

So, it’s your first visit to one of publishing’s major events of the year! If you’re in Trade or Education publishing you’re likely to be making that long walk from the Book Fair entrance to Hall 8 or if your interest is in Academic or STM publishing you could be looking for Hall 4.2.

Once on site you will realise that there are quite a few different halls dealing with different publishing cultures from around the globe (that’s why the big publishers are called ‘global’).

There are a number of mini buses which travel between each of the halls, so if you get some free time, be sure to take a trip outside and you might find an open air market or two for some souvenir hunting!

The key point about the Frankfurt Book Fair is that it is a real centre of activity in the sale of rights between publishing companies worldwide and a terrific forum for publishing people to meet, formally and informally, and to attend a wide variety of seminars and talks about issues which are relevant to the industry today, e.g. Big Data, Open Access, Digital Publishing, Amazon ……..etc.

Most publishing companies will have a large presence of Rights sales staff, seated at tables on their stands and have walls displaying new products, existing products and increasingly screens to present their digital offerings.

Mostly the Rights team will have back to back meetings on half hourly pre-booked appointments with their customers.

If you are going as a Rights Assistant, then this is where you get the opportunity to meet and mingle with many of your international customers and learn the basics of your future career.

How can you find a potential customer to sell the rights in your new product in Brazil? How do you find someone to buy the overstocks of your English language titles in sub-Saharan Africa?

Come to Frankfurt Book Fair!

Each Hall has a plethora of coffee, snack and sandwich stations plus a few seated areas. Find the nearest one to your stand and this will help orientate you so that you can find your way back to the stand!

As a visitor to the Book Fair for the first time, you don’t have to be fluent in German (although it is an advantage) but worth having the following available:

Wo ist Halle acht                             Where is Hall 8

Ein kaffe bitte                                   A coffee, please

Zwie bier bitte                                  Two beers, please

Quittung                                            Receipt (for the above, dinner, taxi)

checklist

So, all set? Bags packed? Dummies ready? Sales material to hand? Got your Euros?

Enjoy your first Frankfurt Book Fair and remember, next year you’ll be an expert!

 

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