The Frankfurt Book Fair is the world’s largest marketplace for publishing, translation and, more particularly, distribution rights. Even  Are Indian companies capitalising on last year's Guest of Honour presentation?

The Frankfurt Book Fair is the world's largest marketplace for publishing, translation and, more particularly, distribution rights. Even though most of the actual transactions are prepared and concluded on-line or in meetings hardly in sync with book fair calendars, there also seems to be a genuine need for meeting places like Frankfurt to build and maintain contacts in this business. This year, we've seen a lot happening at the booths of Asian and Eastern European book professionals, and we've seen larger numbers of book sellers, agents, printers and other service providers from these regions competing for the publishing houses that operate globally. The number of exhibitors has gone up slightly to 7,500 from 7,300 last year, while the number of visitors, 283,300, has remained at about the same level as the past few years. A significant increase, however, was to be seen in the number of new publications on show – a sharp 9 per cent rise with more than 121,200 titles.

While most of the buzz in Frankfurt may be about the book industry's mergers and takeovers and the deals between some of the Big Forty, the real issue is the opportunities this fair offers to the smaller publishers. In an increasingly global market it's at fairs like this one that publishers can capture industry trends, explore new markets, make preliminary contacts, broker deals and start or increase their overseas sales. That is, when they're willing to devote resources and open their minds to what's happening around them.

The Indian book industry
As to the Indian scene in Frankfurt this year, there were promising signs from publishers, printers and dealers alike, but also the persisting impression that the majority are still not aware of the challenges and requirements for competing in a global space. It is quite remarkable that the Frankfurt Book Fair has now decided to set up its seventh regional office in New Delhi, in the months ahead. But when we try to analyze the presence of the Indian book community in Frankfurt this year, we are compelled to look out for the few exceptions so as not to despair.

After last year's Guest of Honour show, we would have expected that the collective Indian presence would at least have maintained something of last year's size, quality and effort. Instead, we had to witness a complete breakdown of co-ordination and distinctive identity. Apart from the usual dozen or so individual Indian exhibitors in different exhibition halls, and in sharp contrast with the other Asian exhibits, the Indian cluster was nothing more than a loose bunch of small booths poorly staffed and scattered between others over two separate alleys. No branding of the Indian book industry, no teaming up, no follow-up support, no marketing events, no catalog nor flyer worth mentioning, not even the odd Indian paper flags that used to decorate the stalls in former years.

We've seen encouraging efforts by individual companies, even though we think that these are still the exception. We've seen some promotion for both the New Delhi World Book Fair and the Delhi Book Fair. Dr Savita Singh (Director of the International Centre of Gandhian Studies) and Shashi Tharoor participated in Frankfurt's opening conference, albeit not for promoting the Indian book industry. So when Delhi is coming to Frankfurt and Frankfurt to Delhi, we think it's time that the industry takes a hard look at itself and the bodies that represent it abroad, and makes sure it pulls itself up to the level it deserves.

The Indian publishing sector comprises some 16,000 publishers with a volume of more than 70,000 titles per year, of which 31,000 in English. There are 30,000 bookshops, and sales turnover of books in the 22 languages is close to Rs 782 billion (2005). The export volume of books from India is Rs 4.8 billion in 2005, against an import volume of Rs 13.4 billion. In comparison, China's book industry comprises less than 800 publishers, produces at least 90,000 titles per year, with a sales turnover of Rs 486 billion, exports of Rs 490 million, and imports of Rs 1.1 billion. So, yes, we're having the numbers of an Asian tiger, and all the advantages of a native English-language publishing industry, but we could work a lot more on our radiating power.

China and the others
China's presence at the Frankfurt Book Fair was crushing in more than one way. In preparation of the republic's Guest of Honour presentation in 2009, and of course the 2008 Olympics, the Chinese book industry pulled out all its stops this year. Next to a dozen Chinese companies scattered over the fair, more than 150 publishers and printers occupied a visible and well-decorated cluster covering almost a quarter of the exhibition hall traditionally reserved for participants from Asia. They were grouped around and in the collective exhibition stand of the General Administration of Press and Publication of the People's Republic of China (GAPP), one of the largest stands of the fair. There was a separate collective stand organised by the 1,025 strong printing company's of Guangdong province, with well-prepared documentation materials. Another stand represented several companies from Shenzhen. Additionally, there was a cluster of printing and publishing groups from Hong Kong. And all over the fair, GAPP had secured a poster campaign that could hardly be ignored.

At a presentation on the first day of the fair, our colleagues of Chinese trade magazine Publishing Today released a list of the top 45 publishers worldwide in 2006, for the first time including a publisher based in Asia, Higher Education Press of China, with a staff of over 2,000 and a sales turnover of Rs 12.6 billion. It has a production of 130 million books a year — one for every ten Chinese readers. Higher Education Press owns 50 websites including portal websites, a dozen academic websites and more than 100 standard teaching products such as “Experience English”, “College Chinese”, “Higher Mathematics” etc.

The company presented plans to carry out the diversification of its products based on resource databases including branded teaching material databases, test question databases, case study databases, teaching software, dummy pilots, internet course and teaching management systems, and websites. It also said it will integrate the 500 top-selling brands that have the best potential for development and are supported by digital resources and develop twenty brands of internationally competitive teaching materials. One of the largest ‘Chinese' printing houses on show this year was RR Donnelly Asia, based in Shanghai.

The Korean book industry again had two very large and very beautiful collective stands. Other well-organised, well-documented and packed collective presentations were organised by the publishing and printing federations of Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. Next to these, the Asian community was well-represented by the individual booths of companies from India (60), China (40), Japan (30), Korea (12), Hong Kong (12), Singapore (12) and smaller numbers from Bangladesh, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. In a simple but well-designed presentation, Korea's Seoul International Book Fair advertised China's Guest of Honour appearance there in May 2008.

For the Indian printers, Frankfurt has become a familiar playing field. Some of them have had the advantages of an exhibition booth in Frankfurt for the past decade or so, others are doing business without the additional costs and hassles of a booth and manage to be visible anyway. An interesting collaboration presented at the fair is that of Thomson Press and Dai Nippon Printing's global publishing services branch LinguaGraphics International under a larger network agreement. In this global network, Thomson Press provides prepress, printing, cross-media and logistic services. Other printers who developed promising leads and expanded their service range in Frankfurt were Aegean Offset of New Delhi, Anderson Technology of Kolkata, JAK of Mumbai, Rave India of New Delhi, and others. Among the publishers, Zubaan clearly has been cashing in most on contacts built in Frankfurt over the years. On the first day of this year's fair, they already concluded two new translation contracts. Also Dreamland Publications, a children's books publisher, has been doing well this year. For the first time with a large booth of its own in Frankfurt, but after patient and intense preparations by its CEO Mr Ved Chawla, who has been a regular visitor to the Frankfurt Book Fair for the past few years.

Next
The next Frankfurt Book Fair will be from 15 to 19 October 2008. Turkey will be the Guest of Honour. In the meantime, one regional book fair worth attending will be the 18th Abu Dhabi International Book Fair running from 11 to 16 March 2008 at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre, UAE. At the 2007 Abu Dhabi International Book Fair, for the first time held in partnership with the Frankfurt Book Fair, more than 420,000 visitors attended the displays of some 400 exhibitors from 46 countries. Highlights were children's books and panels on publishing in India. With 1.2 million immigrants from India living and working in the United Arab Emirates (mainly Abu Dhabi and Dubai), and access to a market of 300 million potential readers in the Arab world, Abu Dhabi is a must for the Indian book industry.