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Home Again, Home Again

March 30, 2009 Have been thinking a bit about Bologna. Part of me agrees with the photographer I went around with for an afternoon. He's been photographing the Fair for 30 years. (translating) "Year after year, everything the same, everything boring." A bit harsh, but the sameness was there. It's too bad we can't avoid the sea of books and just run into interesting people. It's very hard, I think, to spot great titles; it's much easier to share someone else's insight.

That is unless you're trying to write a blog. Then the people who ARE willing to talk to you will only do so OFF the record. Sorry I can't share some of those tidbits.

Here are some impressions, in no particular order:

It's about branding, and Twilight is the series people love to hate. (Of course that won't stop anyone from trying to come up with the next one.) It has the first four positions on the Der Spiegel bestseller list, and it's pretty much the same through Europe.

You can’t imagine the number of picture books. The European ones are art-intensive and many are very beautiful, but it's a different aesthetic from ours for the most part. My favorite first line from a picture book is, "Back in the days when tigers still smoked..." Of course Americans buy very few imports and so our friends rely on another for sales.

Young and middle grade fiction seems to be increasingly popular, but most of those books are written by native authors. That makes sense.

Crossover fiction for older readers has hit Europe, with one agent saying she reckoned that 60% of books for older readers were translations. And at least two publishers who have never published kids' books, Fazi in Italy and Droemer in Germany, are starting older lines.

I was surprised, and a little disappointed, not to find more talk and/or evidence of electronic publishing. What seems inevitable to Americans seems less important right now to others around the world. An exception is Lesley Pollinger of the Gerald Pollinger Agency in London, who is selling books on a print-on-demand basis to a government large-print project. These are mostly out of print and/or out of copyright titles. She sees lots of opportunity and says Random, Bloomsbury and Penguin are the most aggressive in the U.K.

There is a Dutch publisher, Rubinstein, doing a mass market deal with a supermarket company for non-exclusive distribution in the Benelux countries. Little Golden Books have been very successful, along with merch designed to go along with the books, and the hunt is on for other properties.

A common opinion is that companies undergoing restructuring and having layoffs are those already in some difficulty taking advantage of the downturn in the economy to make changes. Otherwise, caution is the word.

Finally, I wonder whether trade shows aren't becoming an anachronism. In an age where we are so wired, sending boatloads of people across the ocean seems less and less prudent--and necessary. Nothing will really ever beat face-to-face contact, but I'm not sure the business is going that direction.

The Book Fair has been great fun for 27 years; I generally come home feeling energized. But the lack of real energy this year has had an effect. I don't know what next year will bring. Perhaps I'll be back, perhaps not, but I've made good friends through the years, and people making books have been a godsend.

Have a great year, one and all.

Posted by Craig Virden on March 30, 2009 | Comments (2)