2023 in Book Fairs: DropCap's Year in Review
With record growth and the launching of our brand new DropCap Marketplace this year, 2023 was (literally) one for the books!
Attending global book fairs is a core piece of what DropCap Rights Agency does for the publishers and titles it represents.
Picture this: bustling halls, vibrant conversations, and a chance for us to connect with authors, publishers, agents, rights buyers, and editors from around the world.
We were thrilled to visit one of our favorite authors, the amazing Joanna Penn, at the 2023 London Book Fair.
We attended The Bologna Children’s Book Fair, The London Book Fair, The Frankfurt Book Fair, and The Guadalajara Book Fair, with our co-agents in Asia attending fairs in Beijing, Taipei, and Shanghai.
DropCap’s signature “big red booth” at the Frankfurt Book Fair
Each international book fair is different, with its own unique focus and audiences, however we did take some time to look back on the year 2023, and came up with this list of top takeaways from attending some of the biggest book fairs in the world:
We are officially post-Covid, and the energy is amazing! All the fairs we attended reported record numbers of exhibitors and participants.
Every book fair this year has broken attendance records! This photo taken at the 2023 Bologna Book Fair was the busy scene that greeted us at every fair.
Books about social/emotional learning (SEL) as well as books dealing with mindfulness and anxiety management were highly sought after, and continue to be requested by our international rights buyers.
Business books and how-to guides remain some or most coveted books. We encourage all authors of business books to list their books in our marketplace so they can be discovered by our international rights buyers.
While our award-winning rights management software does much of the work to match buyers with the content they are looking for, there is nothing like a face-to-face, in person pitch from our agenting team.
Our book fairs resulted in hundreds of meetings with rights buyers and personalized pitches of some of our most exciting titles.
The DropCap team at the 2023 Frankfurt Book Fair.
Looking ahead to 2024… we are focused on NEW VOICES!
Our indie success stories from 2023 continue to grow, and we look forward to more opportunities to feature outstanding indie books for consideration in the global print, audio, film, and TV market.
DropCap agent and cofounder Allison Olson pitched many of our new and noteworthy titles to our Spanish-language buyers at the 2023 Guadalajara Book Fair.
The best way to stay informed about what’s happening in the rights market, including how to get YOUR book noticed on the global stage, is to list your book on our exclusive international book discovery platform, DropCap Marketplace.
We are working on several exciting initiatives for 2024, including more ways to showcase our amazing indie titles and discover even more great publishers to partner with.
We hope to see you at the next book fair in London or Bologna in 2024!
