Frankfurter Buchmesse—When Publishing Reps from All Over the World Come Together to Sell and Buy Foreign Rights to Books
Translated editions are the key to spreading a powerful, culturally-diverse read to anyone anywhere, and this is the primary focus of the Frankfurt Book Fair. Taking place annually in Frankfurt, Germany, since 1949, it is the largest book fair of any kind in the world with over 7,000 exhibits from 100 different countries and hosts hundreds of thousands of visitors.
From October 10th to the 14th, our general manager, Terrilee, and our senior editor, Whitney, are attending to represent Nimbus Publishing and all of its titles available in our Rights Catalogue for this year. Some of the newer titles include A Circle on the Surface by Carol Bruneau, Beholden by Lesley Crewe, and If I Had an Old House on the East Coast by Wanda Baxter and Kat Frick Miller. Other “familiar faces” are After Many Years: Twenty-one “Long Lost” Stories by L.M. Montgomery, The Snow Knows by Jennifer McGrath, and longtime favourite The Illuminated Life of Maud Lewis by Lance Woolaver.
What mostly takes place over this four day period are business meetings discussing the sale of rights for books. Publishers display their wares at their booths and traverse all over the halls of the fair to see other exhibits, either searching for books they’d like to publish in their own language or formalizing agreements with other publishers to distribute their title in another language. Simply put it’s the key event where literature is shared, starting the chain of translation and distribution for a book that eventually reaches its readers across the world.
Most recently, for example, Nimbus has been privileged to sign a deal with London’s Saltway Publishing for A Giant Man from a Tiny Town by Tom Ryan and Christopher Hoyt, Mabel Murple by Sheree Fitch, and Be Prepared! by Frankie MacDonald and Sarah Sawler. And in 2016, Nimbus made our latest foray into the rights-buying market with Say Goodnight, originally from UK’s Bonnier Books (published by Nimbus this past spring).
Keep 2020 in mind for this important event, as (excitingly) the Guest of Honour that year will be Canada!
Blog post by Meaghan Steeves