Everybody seemed to be smiling at the latest (October 13-18) Frankfurt Book Fair. Not that the living was easy or fish were jumping, for there was plenty of woe, particularly in the host country (and in the large media groups whose sneezing could have given everybody a cold). Nor could the general cheerfulness be attributed to the books offered, for few blockbuster authors came through this year and the most sought-after titles were by untested youngsters.
Perhaps it just felt good to be among so many friends again. If the number of exhibiting imprints was down slightly, they occupied 5% more space than before. Once again, Britain fielded the most publishing units (913) after the host country, followed by the United States.
Smiles often disappeared on the way to the Literary Agents Center, which proved to be too far from the action for many publishers, especially for those who hadn't paid attention to advance warnings and therefore hadn't allowed for the extra walking and climbing time when making appointments. Those who had the authors for whom publishers would walk a mile, though, were pleased with the center. "I'm happier here," admitted Owen Laster, in charge of literary operations at the William Morris agency.
The Germans at Home
The business mood was set by former publisher Michael Naumann, now Germany's commissioner for cultural affairs and media, at the fair's formal opening. The reading habit, he observed, was giving way to the TV habit everywhere in the world. In passing, he paid tribute to book sales via the Internet, although he pointed out that in Germany the Net accounted for only 0.4% of the $10-billion-plus book market. Speaking to guests at his traditional lunch reception later that week, Karl Blessing, a Bertelsmann publisher, reported that if spring had been gloomy, there has been a noticeable pickup ever since. Apparently, the Nobel for Günter Grass had drawn people back to bookstores.
"The mood is really depressed," Dieter von Holtzbrinck told his own luncheon guests. It became clear that both megagroups are concerned by the slowdown, with returns at an unprecedented high and club sales withering, but it is also true that both unveiled plans to cope with it. Holtzbrinck moved Peter Wilfert from the Fischer group--where he had performed miracles with imprints W. Krüger, Argon and Fischer Taschenbuch--to Rowohlt, where his skills as a no-nonsense commercial publisher will be added to those of literary publisher Nikolaus Hansen. Beginning January 1, Kindler Verlag, an upscale imprint that had been something of an orphan at Munich's Dr mer, will be transferred to Hansen's jurisdiction.
There is a strong tendency in the groups to bypass Germany's strict fixed-price agreements, and highly placed publishers predict the collapse of fixed prices before too long. On its side, Bertelsmann is teaching customers to expect discounts, thanks to a scheme called Premiere under which a previously unpublished title with commercial prospects is sold in Bertelsmann-operated club shops and via the catalogue at the club discount price. The first quarterly offering, The Lazarus Child by Robert Mawson, sold 900,000 copies; selection two, The Drowning People by Richard Mason, almost reached 450,000 and then I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb, long and literary and expensive, topped 400,000. Now the scheme will be extended to other Bertelsmann clubs in Europe.
Deals Not So Hot
Almost apologetically, agents and scouts confessed the absence of blockbuster bylines at the fair. In the absence of a surefire commercial hit, the star of the show was a reprint by Overlook Press of the 1937 novel Ali and Nino by the pseudonymous Kurban Said. (For more on other fair deals, see Hot Deals.)
That you don't have to write in English to arouse interest was proved by Jostein Gaarder, represented at Frankfurt by a millennium novel called Maya, which plays with time and space and eternal art. Rights belonged to its publisher, William Nygaard of Norway's Aschehoug, who told PW that Orion had spoken up for Britain, leaving American rights free as the fair drew to a close.
By now, the modus operandi of the fair's biggest rights buyers had become standardized, although New York scout Bettina Schrewe decided not to book a table at the Agents Center since she and each of her principals carried a cell phone. She had set up their appointments, which meant organizing 25 separate dawn-to-dusk schedules. And each of her clients came equipped with her hot list, which she had e-mailed 10 days before the fair, supplemented by a Monday morning hot-hot list. All the same, Schrewe told PW she found it a quiet fair.
In the absence of major-league commercial novels, the most-wanted books were literary, often upmarket fiction for women, books such as Nomi Eve's Silence Speaking, which made it to Franklin & Siegal's top 10 list; in the nonfiction category, the untitled memoir by Queen Noor was also among the top 10. Truly, the lack of blockbuster potential didn't dampen the excitement; it was as if countries in trouble worked harder to win auctions for books that would help them out of the slump.
The Bottom Line
Most people PW talked to agreed that it was a rather successful Frankfurt for very good publishers; it took only a couple of promising projects to get a queue forming at one's booth. Todd Siegal and Amy Metsch mentioned the new wave of upscale Canadian fiction, and Toronto agent Beverly Slopen confirmed that Canadians were having a good fair thanks to the behavior of their southern neighbor. What with mergers and downsizing, she concluded that "Americans have set the bar too high." They expect such high print runs that they aren't doing interesting books anymore, which makes English-language books from elsewhere look so good.
Nicholas Costa, of Argentina's International Editors agency, had bad news from Latin America, with Argentina in slow decline, deeply hurt by Brazil's devaluation and the resultant drop in exports, and unable to meet lower-priced books from Spain. Mexico's problems virtually rule out the publishing of fiction there (to the advantage of practical and self-help titles). International Editors, which operates out of Barcelona and Buenos Aires, holds steady, although a notable increase in contracts is producing only stable revenues because of lower advances, .
The millennium industry was going full steam. One who benefited from it without hardly trying was Holy Land packager Shlomo Gafni of Jerusalem Publishing House, who found that he could recycle his standbys. Thus the classic History of the Holy Land, originally produced for U.S. Macmillan and half a dozen European publishers, became 5000 Years of the Holy Land, and some very big publishers were buying it. He was also signing with Facts on File for a one-volume encyclopedia of the Holocaust, produced by Jerusalem Publishing House with Yad Vashem.
Fair Week News
Much publishing news released during fair week actually originated outside Frankfurt. Havas, France's largest publisher, announced the launch of Havas Electronic Content Publishing, which will include a number of projects, among which are ePocket, an editorial unit in the Havas paperback company Pocket to develop content for new reading devices and electronic distribution systems, and a partnership with Microsoft to produce a new software platform with high readability for e-books.
It was also in Frankfurt that PW learned of the agreement between the upscale Gallimard children's division and the giant Bayard press group to work together (without merging), creating a de facto entity that becomes France's number one children's publisher with a market share of more than 20%.
Meanwhile, on the fairgrounds, the Association of American Publishers staged a meeting to brief publishers, booksellers and press about plans to make the "Get Caught Reading" campaign an international affair; AAP's Pat Schr der and Barbara Meredith were on hand with promotional kits and an offer of free use of the campaign's imagery in foreign promotions. Microsoft called a press conference to launch a campaign for annual awards for original work published in eBook format (News, Oct. 18).
In an attempt to bring Iran back into the book world, Frankfurt opened the door to the country's publishers for the first time in 10 years (they had been excluded because of the Iranian government's support of the death sentence decreed by religious authorities against author Salman Rushdie). The return of the Iranians occurred without incident, and the two publishing houses whose travel and participation were supported by fair management took part in a panel discussion on "Iran, the Esthetics of Resistance," with the participation of Iranian writers in exile.
For readers and publishers alike, the award of this year's Nobel Prize to Günter Grass was a gift. Grass did his duty for his publishers, on the fairgrounds and off, and in turn was serenaded by admirers on the fair's Saturday, which also happened to be his birthday. Tom Wolfe was also serenaded by publishers, who lined up to shake his hand at a breakfast hosted by Lynn Nesbit of Janklow & Nesbit. Wolfe had done a week-long tour of key German cities before winding up in Frankfurt, in the loving care of his German publisher, Dr mer's Hans-Peter à bleis, who was watching A Man in Full climb the lists. "I waited years for a new Tom Wolfe," Brazil's Paulo Rocco confessed. Nesbit assured breakfast guests that Wolfe promised to finish his next novel quickly.
On the fair's Sunday morning, the German book trade traditionally gives its Peace Prize, which this year went to American historian Fritz Stern, who migrated to the U.S. in 1938 at the age of 12 with his German-Jewish parents. Frankfurt honored Siegfried Unseld, the publisher at prestigious Suhrkamp, on his 75th birthday; speakers included Frankfurt's mayor Petra Roth and publisher Roger W. Straus.
Elsewhere in town, K.G. Verlag, the bibliographical specialist, celebrated the 50th anniversary of its founding. Publisher Klaus Saur might be called a one-man Bowker--although his books-in-print makes even R.R. Bowker's seem small--for Germany has been producing more titles per annum than the U.S. for more than 25 years. Today's production includes a broad range of bibliographies, biographical indexes and dictionaries, directories of history and art. (Saur sold the company to Reed in 1987.)
Saur was one of a group of fair old-timers presented with scrolls in the office of fair director Peter Weidhaas; the others were Gordon Graham (ex-Butterworth, now editor of Logos), AAP troubleshooter Fred Kobrak, publishing consultant Sally Wecklser (ex-Bowker), Joost Bl msma of Meulenhoff Multimedia, Alun Davies of Random House, U.K. publisher Lionel Leventhal (cofounder of the London Book Fair) and even a PW reporter.
In addition, Berlin publisher Walter de Gruyter came to Frankfurt to celebrate a 250th birthday (actually the birthday of its subsidiary Georg Reimer). In their Logos booth, Gordon and Betty Graham celebrated the century with the 100 books that shaped it, starting off with Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim and Sigmund Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams, not overlooking Lenin and Marie Curie and D.H. Lawrence, Joyce and Mann and Faulkner. Booth visitors were invited to submit their own titles; the top 50 nominations will be published.
Outside the Fair
Although the trade often fails to take notice, scientific and technical publishers are among the biggest and most influential exhibitors at Frankfurt. Each year, on the day before the fair, the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers holds a general assembly. This year, at an event that packed 340 CEOs and their deputies into a downtown hotel ballroom, the gathered publishers agreed to a complete and "seamless" linking of journal articles published via the Internet. Technologies permitting this had been tested over a 24-month period, and the plan is to implement the linking at a December industry conference in London. "This simple act begins to deliver on the full promise of the Web," remarked STM's chairman Robert Campbell of Blackwell Science.
Less formal was the annual breakfast of alumni editorial fellows of the Jerusalem Book Fair, which also draws nonfellow leaders of the publishing community; the resulting mix is an impressive sampling of the greater book fair, although the average age of guests is a bit lower. Keeping the fair young and lively is a gift of the Holtzbrinck publishing group, which sponsors the biannual fellowship program.
At the now-traditional Rights Directors Meeting the afternoon before the fair, a group that is experimenting with offering rights online, including France Edition, London's Paul Marsh agency and the John Brockman-related RightsCenter.com, described how they did it--though no one so far seems to be handling money on the Web.
A last surprise note: almost uniquely, it was a sunny, crisply cool Frankfurt throughout. Next year's fair will take place a full week further into autumn, October 18-23.
