Saturday, October 10, 2009


Publishers prepared for scaled-back Frankfurt
09.10.09 Benedicte Page The Bookseller

The UK editorial presence at the Frankfurt Book Fair next week will be sharply reduced from its usual levels, with US editors expected to be even fewer on the ground.
Transworld publisher Bill Scott-Kerr said four editors, half the usual number, would attend, although rights and international sales staff would go in full numbers. "I'm missing it for the first time in 15 years," he said. "We're obviously looking to be as economic as possible and we probably don't need to be as thick on the ground as in previous years. In recent years a lot of the big books are tied up prior to the fair opening."
At Penguin, m.d. Helen Fraser said editorial presence at the fair was being halved this year from four editors to two. Simon & Schuster publishing director Suzanne Baboneau said the publisher was not sending any editors to the fair this year: "It's the first time I haven't been for about 10 years." She added: "There is quite a lot on offer and being in London means there will be more time for us to read."
Publishers said they expected US attendance to be particularly hard-hit. Pan Macmillan fiction publisher Jeremy Trevathan said attendance from Macmillan US would be much reduced. "They have really cut back, with only one editor attending this year," he said.
Curtis Brown agent Jonny Geller sounded a note of warning about the lack of UK editorial presence. "It's an inevitability—with the internet and email—that books can get sold more effectively the week before or after Frankfurt [than at the fair itself], but the Frankfurt and London book fairs are very important," he said. "The UK market has always been a force disproportionate to its size because it's such a vibrant publishing industry. For the last 10 years we have been the centre of European publishing going [i.e. selling] to the US and with a diminished presence in Frankfurt we will lose that position."
However, Baboneau said she expected this year's lack of attendance to be a one-off. "I'm hoping we will all be back next year because I gain an awful lot from meeting US and European publishers and we get into a rhythm with the London Book Fair and Frankfurt," she said.

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