Thomas Minkus, Press Officer
Frankfurt Book Fair
T +49 (0) 69 2102-138
press@book-fair.com
Wanted: Successful Business Models for Digitisation
Professional events at the Frankfurt Book Fair
Frankfurt, 22 September 2009 - “This year’s Fair will be the most important we’ve ever had for trying out new things” announced Juergen Boos, Director of the Frankfurt Book Fair, about the upcoming industry event (14 -18 October 2009). “The question of how we can earn money with digital content is on everyone’s mind”, said Boos. The time is now ripe for new ideas and business models - whether they be off- or online, mobile or stationary. “In Frankfurt, people and ideas from about 100 countries come into contact. It is thus the ideal opportunity to find the quickest path from an experiment to a business model.” Nearly 2,500 events will take place over five days on the site of the Frankfurt Book Fair; trade visitors anticipate a packed programme of lectures, conferences, tours, presentations and discussion forums. Around 7,000 exhibitors are expected to take part in the fair this year.
The digitisation hype has taken hold of the industry all over the world - but the printed book is and will remain the nucleus around which all other business models will gather: While the publishing industries in the USA and UK lament the recession, revenues of the German book industry remain more than just stable - sales actually grew by 0.4 per cent to 9.6 billion euros in 2008. International book markets like Latin America, China and India have also experienced gains. The business of rights licensing in any form is thereby gaining in significance: The number of registrations in the Literary Agents & Scouts Centre, the meeting place for agents at the Fair, has increased by 11 per cent in 2009.
It also shows that the personal exchange of information and experience takes on greater importance in times of upheaval: International conferences like “Tools of Change for Publishing - TOC Frankfurt” (Tuesday, 8.30 a.m. - 6.00 p.m., Radisson Blu Hotel), the 23rd Rights Directors Meeting (Tuesday, 2.00 p.m. - 5.00 p.m., Congress Centre) or the online conference of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Informationswissenschaft - the German Association for Information Science - (15 – 17 October, Hall 4.2, Room Dimension) are heavily in demand. The Digital Market Place (Hall 4.2) recorded a 27 per cent increase in space booked.
The book industry’s capital is its inexhaustible fund of content - and the competence of “book people” to deal with content. The enormous potential behind this can be delved into nowhere better than at the Frankfurt Book Fair: “Our task as organiser of the biggest Book Fair in the world is to observe the international media markets and to bring together potential business partners. The global issue of digitisation already demands that we think beyond the boundaries of our industry and into neighbouring sectors to search for solutions”, said Juergen Boos.
The new focus on Creative Industries brings the creative industries together and explores the interfaces between them: The Forum Film & TV, the meeting place of the film and book industries since 2003, is expanding this year to the Film & Media Forum. Around 200 events are devoted to the neighbouring creative economies of film, games, music, design and photography.
The event programme “Focus on Creative Content” offers more than 20 panels, workshops, lectures, tours, get-togethers and public events: Dieter Gorny, President of the Bundesverband Musikindustrie (the Association of the German Music Industry) will explain how publishers can profit from the experiences of the music industry (Wednesday, 3.30 p.m., Film & Media Forum). The panel discussion “From Books to Games” will focus on how bestsellers can be adapted into games and what rights clearance issues must be heeded (Thursday, 3.30 p.m., Film & Media Forum). The variety of perspectives will be bundled together in the trend panel Creative Industries “Future meets Books meets TV meets Games meets Music meets Mobile”: Here representatives of the creative industries will analyse the many varieties of media convergence (Thursday, 5.00 p.m., Film & Media Forum).
Questions about new business and financial models for digital content are occupying the publishing industry worldwide - members of the industry are aiming for new impulses from China and the USA: One company that has successfully marketed online literature is Shanda Literature Ltd. Attendees of the event “Integration of new media with traditional media” will gain insights into the Chinese publisher’s recipe for success (Wednesday, 12.15 p.m., Forum Innovation).
The consequences of digitisation is the subject of the panel discussion “Will all books be ‘e’? The impact of e-books on the industry”. Participating will be Victoria Barnsley (HarperCollins UK), Richard Charkin (Bloomsbury Publishing), Andrew Savikas (O'Reilly Media), Ronald Schild (MVB Marketing- und Verlagsservice des Buchhandels GmbH - Marketing and Publishing Services of the German Book Trade) (Thursday, 4.00 p.m., Forum Innovation).
Barack Obama, Lance Armstrong and Yoko Ono have an online presence in the Web 2.0 world - and the Frankfurt Book Fair has also recently got in on the act: Twitter, Facebook & Co. are enjoying greater popularity. Around 30 events at the Frankfurt Book Fair will demonstrate how social media can be put into practice in a way that builds profit. By the way: The Frankfurt Book Fair itself is tweeting under Book_Fair and there is a Tweetup - a meeting of the 140-character communicators with an interest in the Book Fair - planned for the Fair. More on this under the hashtag #fbf09 on Twitter.
An innovative presentation format celebrates its premiere with the weiss’raum in Hall 4.0: Here service providers in the field of book production can introduce their latest innovations on a single day. Each day has a designated theme: On the Wednesday of the Fair, everything will revolve around content management systems, remote publishing and web-to-print technologies.
The Centre for Photography (Hall 4.1 Q 539) is the central meeting point for photo agencies and photo purchasers. Due to great demand, the collective area has already been expanded in the first year of its existence to 230 square metres. On the Saturday of the Fair (17 October), the Frankfurt Book Fair is organising a day for up-and-coming photographers: From 10.00 a.m. to 2.00 p.m., young photographers who have been recommended by professors and renowned experts will present their portfolios in a “portfolio walk”, which the photography expert Ute Noll (On Photography & Illustration, Stuttgart) has co-ordinated for the Centre for Photography.
Questions about copyright protection on the Internet, the debate about Open Access and the Google Settlement are among the top issues of this year’s Book Fair. “What’s New About Google - European and American Positions Towards the Google Settlement” is the title of one panel. Prof. Roland Reuss (University of Heidelberg), Richard Sarnoff (Random House, Inc.) and Dr. Christian Sprang (Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels - the German Publishers and Booksellers Association) will each take their stance on the Friday of the Fair. (Friday, 12.30 p.m. - 1.30 p.m., Hall 4.C, Room Entente. Register via programme@book-fair.com)
Whether literary agent or marketing expert, independent publisher or head of a corporation, apprentice, librarian or bookseller - the professional programme of the Frankfurt Book Fair offers events that are relevant to every target audience. The complete programme of the Frankfurt Book Fair 2009 is available at http://www.book-fair.com/calendar
The Frankfurt Book Fair is the biggest book fair in the world - with more than 7,000 exhibitors from over 100 countries. It also organises the participation of German publishers at more than 25 international book fairs and is associated with the Cape Town Book Fair in South Africa and the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair. It maintains the most visited website worldwide for the publishing industry at www.book-fair.com. The Frankfurt Book Fair is a subsidiary of the German Publishers & Booksellers Association.
Print
Send the page
Top
Back
