At a recent press conference in Berlin, director of the Frankfurt Book Fair Juergen Boos compared the state of international publishing to Germany’s 19th century “Gründerzeit” – an age of pioneering entrepreneurship: “2012 was called the ‘year of the start-up’ in the USA and the UK. Now that spirit has also taken hold in Germany and the rest of Europe.” As evidence of this trend in Germany he cited Tolino, a collaboration between the larger booksellers and Telekom, as well as Flipintu, which views itself as a kind of “Spotify for books”, and Sobooks, a new publishing concept from cult blogger Sascha Lobo. Like many others, Sobooks will celebrate its launch at the Book Fair.
As Boos described the situation, “The dividing line is no longer between old and new, print and e-books, analogue and digital; instead it runs between those who have a passion for content and who want to provide access to it, and those who don’t really care what they’re selling.”
Boos expects this pioneering spirit to be even more intensely palpable at the Book Fair, which is the most important meeting place for international publishing, with around 7,100 exhibitors attending from more than 100 countries, and about 300,000 visitors in total. In 2010, for the first time, the Book Fair introduced a new exhibition format aimed at industry innovators. The so-called Hot Spots have since proved valuable as launching pads for new ideas and products. A list about 20 pages long, compiled by the Frankfurt Book Fair under the title “Best of publishing start-ups”, includes numerous exhibitors, such as Contentment, Snapplify, Widbook and Booxtream.
On 8 October CONTEC, the successor to the well-known O’Reilly conference “Tools of Change for Publishing”, will bring together publishers and technology companies, as well as start-ups and venture capitalists. Trends such as self-publishing and open access, or open education in the science and education segment, make it clear that the means of accessing knowledge are being reconceived. The entry points to the world of fiction are also changing, with the boundaries between reality and fiction becoming blurred as the virtual world grows in importance. In response to this, the StoryDrive conference (11 October) has made “Fiction is real!” its motto this year.
With Gunter Dueck as the host, and with a range of international speakers such as film-maker Ziad Doueiri, and John Mitchinson, founder of the start-up Unbound (UK), it will examine a number of recent developments, including augmented reality and “immersive storytelling”.
Some suggested programme tips for those interested in start-ups at the Book Fair is available here.
