The Bookseller.com

7th January 2009

Hannah Davies is supplements editor of The Bookseller.

A first-timer's Frankfurt

13.10.08

For many publishing veterans the annual Frankfurt Book Fair is just another part of the publishing calendar, but I'm feeling excited as this week I'll be heading to the fair for the first time to cover the event for The Bookseller dailies. However, I'll also admit that as the date of my ridiculously early morning flight to Germany hurtles towards me I'm also starting to feel rather overwhelmed. All I keep hearing about is huge halls that require a bus to get from one to the other and are incredibly easy to get lost in. Scary.

In a bid to ease my Frankfurt fears, last month I attended the Society of Young Publishers' inaugural pre-Frankfurt event sponsored by the Frankfurt Book Fair and the Independent Publisher's Guild.

The SYP called upon the expertise of six book fair veterans to aid anxious publishers' preparations. Opening the event was Thomas Minkus, vice president for Frankfurt Book Fair marketing and sales who gave an overview of what to expect from this year's fair. Chairing the proceedings was Edward Milford, executive chairman of Earthscan and former chair of the IPG and making up the panel were Emma Hayley, m.d. of SelfMade Hero, Peter Newson, export sales director at Headline, Lynette Owen, copyright director at Pearson Education and Diane Spivey, rights and contracts director at Little, Brown.

Newson, who'll be making his 30th consecutive book fair appearance this year, shocked everyone in the audience with some alarming book fair statistics. After 29 visits he claims to have spent seven months of his life at Frankfurt, made up of 10 weeks seeing customers, four weeks waiting for food, three weeks eating it, six weeks sleeping and a whole seven weeks drinking. I'm feeling better about the fair already.

For those who didn't attend, here are the top ten Frankfurt tips I've drawn together with the advice from the experts:
 
1) Decide exactly which books you need to show to each customer and only discuss what is relevant

2) Study the floor-plan and work out which stands you must make time to visit on top of your pre-arranged appointments - passing trade is still possible and should be attempted in the five minutes at the end of an appointment slot, as publishers might have finished early.

3) Take a big supply of printed material and your business cards to hand out to customers

4) Wear flat shoes at all times - you will regret wearing heels

5) Guard your notebook with your life - losing it, can make the fair a complete waste of time

6) Book restaurants in advance, they fill up quickly and you (probably) don't want to end up in McDonald's

7) Don't try and get cabs from outside the fair, get a train from the station right by Hall 8.0. to the main station and pick up a cab from there

8) Party wisely - Milford summed it up perfectly: "A couple of glasses of wine makes it easier to talk to people, a couple more and everyone is your best friend, and a couple more than that and your first appointment will look decidedly dicey"

9) Take large supplies of strepsils, drink lots of water and hook up a coffee machine on your stand

10) Don't expect the first time to be the most inspiring but try and enjoy yourself!

First-timers can gather further hints and tips in a feature I wrote for The Bookseller's Frankfurt Book Fair Preview Supplement (and also now available online here). The supplement includes several other useful articles covering the history of the fair as Frankfurt celebrates its 60th anniversary this year, the talent from Turkey - the Guest of honour, an investigation into whether we should all be taking the train to the fair, and the usual handy round-up of events, complete with floor plan to study.