MAIN NEWS HEADLINES
September 14 – September 21, 2006 Edition
Frankfurt Book Fair
To Focus On Open
Market Rights
Frankfurt, Germany/9/13/06—The Frankfurt Book Fair, one of the largest of its kind in the world, is expected to attract several hundred thousands people from throughout the world October 4-8, 2006 in Frankfurt, Germany. Theyll be there to view the book collections of more than 7,000 exhibitors from 100-plus countries.
A highlight of the annual event is the International Rights Directors 20th annual meeting where international professionals deal with recent issues from the world rights and license trade on the day prior to the fair opening. The conference is held in English.
This year, a key theme of the meeting will be to bring into focus English language rights, important to both global and small publishers alike.
The English language market is undergoing major changes and there is a heated debate among publishers over complex open market territories.
The afternoon will be divided into two sessions. The first will tackle the trading of English language territorial rights by Anglophone publishers and agents and give an insight into English-speaking markets such as Australia or India. The second part will look at foreign language publishers seeking to sell English language rights to the relevant markets.
In both sessions, the key issue of the transatlantic divide and questions regarding open market territories will be discussed by British and American publishers and agents (mainly general trade), as well as publishing experts from markets such as Australia, India and Germany.
The rights meeting will be held at 2 p.m. October 3.
The history of the Frankfurt Book Fair dates back to the 15th century, when Johannes Gutenberg first invented movable type only a few kilometres down the road from Frankfurt.
Frankfurt remained the central and undisputed European book fair city through to the 17th century. In the course of political and cultural upheaval, in the 18th century Leipzig then came to play the part.
In 1949, that early Frankfurt book fair tradition was given a new lease of life: 205 German exhibitors assembled on Sept. 18-23 in Frankfurt’s Paulskirche for the first post-War book fair.
More than 50 trade-fair years later, the Frankfurt Book Fair is among the largest of its kind in the world and the hallmark for global activities in the field of culture.
With year-round services and information offerings for the international trade, the Frankfurt Book Fair has thus emerged as the world-wide market place for ideas—365 days a year. The Fair site is at http://www.book-fair.com.
