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Selling product at Frankfurt

15.10.07

There's nothing like going to Frankfurt to make you think that publishing is only very peripherally about writers, according to a piece in the Observer. "They're simply the manufacturers of the 'product', and wandering around Frankfurt's eight vast 'halls' - spaces which would comfortably accommodate a fleet of 747s and have enough room left over for a couple of municipal libraries in the corner - is a salutary lesson in just how many other manufacturers of product there are, and just how much product. Or, as we old-fashioned types call them, books."

But as the newspaper notes, for as long as people have written books, people have sold them too, and this involves a certain amount of talking things up. "Patrick Janson-Smith, whom I find in the agents' centre looking rather gloomy, says: 'You look around and you think the world needs another book like it needs a hole in the head.' I know Patrick because he used to be the head of Transworld, and the publisher whose signature is on my contract. He's also one of the highest-profile publishers in recent years to jump ship and become an agent. 'If you're not in a three-for-two or Richard & Judy, forget it,' he says. 'There's no point. If you ask me, publishing is in a mess.'"

Guardian

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