Behind the Scenes at an International Book Fair
It’s been a transformational last few years for everyone, and DropCap is no exception. We recently talked about this in an article we wrote for The Independent Book Publisher’s Association called How the Pandemic Has Forever Changed How We Sell (Book) Rights.
At our company, we are always asking ourselves how we can make it easier for prospective buyers to view titles more effectively… COVID-19 sped up the adoption of technology-centric ways to market and monetize rights.
Interactive Rights Guide
Our exclusive rights management software makes it easy to showcase our clients’ titles and match them with interested international book buyers.
While the entire world had to pivot and change in the past two years, book fairs are back in business. Join us for a look behind the scenes as we prepare ourselves for the Frankfurt Book Fair, the biggest global rights marketplace in the world, this coming October.
How much preparation goes into attending an international book fair?
In a word: A lot.
The team at DropCap plans for book fairs months in advance. It’s much more than just booking tickets and hotel rooms. We have a huge book display to coordinate, hundreds of books to ship to the location, and back-to-back meetings to set up with international rights buyers.
The DropCap booth at the Frankfurt Book Fair, 2019
Then, there’s the preparation of our Interactive Rights Guide.
Our work in the weeks leading up to the book fair is centered around our titles: working with publishers to identify the most promising books to display and understanding what titles our partners around the world will be most interested in.
“There’s a lot of work that goes into preparing to meet with international rights buyers. Our job is to make sure that we are highlighting the titles the agents and editors are looking for and that we have suggestions for them that meet their needs.”
What’s it like inside the book fair?
International book fairs are huge. How huge? The Frankfurt Book fair alone attracts more than 7000 exhibitors from over 100 countries.
If you think about that in terms of the sheer volume of people in attendance, it equals about 300,000 people in total over the course of the fair. That’s about 60,000 book professionals alone, not counting when the fair is open to the public.
The London Book Fair. Photo Credit: Publisher’s Weekly
In other words, international book fairs are giant, fast-paced, and exciting events. Think Grand Central Station for books, publishers, editors, and agents.
Meetings are happening, relationships are being made, and of course, books are being passed around and carefully considered by editors from around the world.
We’d describe the showroom floor of the book fair as organized chaos. Lots of talking, negotiating, presenting, and excitement around books and their potential.
See Inside the Frankfurt Book Fair >>
“We’re exhausted by the end of the day, that’s for sure. But it’s worth it knowing that we have helped our clients get seen by the right book buyers across the world. Negotiating deals on behalf of our publisher clients is incredibly rewarding and exciting for us.”
Does every agency present their books in a large booth like the one DropCap uses?
One of the things that makes DropCap unique is our big red display booth. While most of the agencies doing what we do will secure a table in a Rights Center for an international book fair, our booth allows us to present our books in the same part of the exhibition hall that the biggest publishers in the world do.
Setting up the DropCap booth before the fair.
DropCap’s distinctive red booth allows us to display our books front and center, alongside the world’s best selling books. Our booth gets us lots of walk in traffic, which is excellent for building our client list and making more relationships.
“The DropCap booth makes presenting books and selling translation rights so much easier at the book fair. We of course take client meetings, but we can also support walk-in appointments and showcase a huge variety of titles simply because we have more space to do so. ”
The DropCap team & Publisher Clients in Frankfurt in front of the big red booth, 2018.
What are your meetings with international book buyers like?
In the past, it was a lot of manual work.
The international editor would express interest in a title, the agent would take note and pass it along to the publisher to request a PDF to be sent to the interested party post book fair, this process could take weeks to a few months. Then the follow-up would commence.
When we started DropCap in 2018, we wanted to revolutionize how these transactions took place. We created our exclusive Rights Management Platform, Sherlock, to connect interested buyers with the manuscript in a matter of seconds.
Negotiating deals with the help of Sherlock at the Frankfurt Book Fair, 2019
Because of our Rights Management Platform, our meetings with potential buyers run very efficiently. For some clients, we are doing a deeper dive into titles they’ve already expressed interest in, and for others, we’re showing them titles we think they should consider.
It’s not all the time that a contract is created and sealed in those 30-minute meetings… but it does happen!
What happens after the book fair?
After everyone recovers from jet lag, we work to follow up with buyers quickly. In many ways, the days and weeks of follow-up after the fair are just as important as the preparation we do to get there.
“The book fair is a whirlwind of excitement and energy. When we come home, it’s all about keeping that same excitement and energy going. Our goal at DropCap is to not only make deals for our clients but also to create life-long relationships that can continue to cultivate at the next book fair, and the next book fair after that.”
What is the “best” book fair to attend?
Our agents at DropCap never miss the fairs in London or Frankfurt – they are an integral part of our business. While both Monica and Allison agree that going to the Bologna Book Fair in Italy is a treat because of the amazing location, there is much excitement happening around some of the newer fairs.
