Day five inside of Hall 8.0 at booth L 926 is quiet. People stop by to say goodbye to each other. Most of the European foreign rights’ traders are on their way home for the weekend. The publishers are packing up their books and materials, taking down their booths, and thinking strategically about the next three weeks of follow-up emails, telephone calls, and signed contracts.
Most are left with the question: Which way is the industry turning? For a trading fair that began with a man named Johannes Gensfleisch selling printings of the Pope’s messages on the banks of the Main in October of 1454, it’s a good question.
Gensfleisch, or Gutenberg as he was known in the trade (after the name of his printing shop), was interested in the development of typesetting. Being able to copy three (3) pages in a day was a big deal in Gutenberg’s age. That was high technology! It is also why Frankfurt, and not Leipzig, became known as the world’s foremost foreign trading fair. Gutenberg’s ‘book’, or ‘page’, trading was just as popular as his services. That is, he not only sold ‘books’; he sold the services and technology to make books. That is why his statue graces the square in Goethe Platz today. In Leipzig, book traders from all over came to buy and sell handwritten manuscripts. And from 1764-1861, crowds dominated the plaza here each year. People came to Leipzig for the stories; traders came to Frankfurt for the business.
Today is Leipzig. Teens are dressed in Manga costumes hoping to catch a glimpse of their favourite star illustrator. German authors are signing books in Hall 3, and the buses, trams, and underground rails coming into the Messe stop are crowded, hot, and loud. It’s a great day for a fair! There is sunshine and children’s balloons and costumed entertainers everywhere. There are even some of the same stands retailers probably used in 1800 in Leipzig – a single wooden table crammed with used books for sale. It is retail.
Paris’s Salon de Livre in March is a lot like this day at the Buchmesse as well. The Salon de Livre is primarily for the public. Books are on sale everywhere, and you can glimpse authors, musicians, and yes, even Manga characters.
But Frankfurt is primarily for the trade. And who will be trading the world’s thinking in the future?
That is what Howard is asking himself today, “What has happened to all of those publishers who loved ideas? Who were in the business to get the ideas out?” There use to be an integrity in publishing, a critical eye for new, fresh thought, the types of thought that have never been printed or seen by the world before. And yet, fresh technology is what plasters content.
In this way, the questions asked this week are very much the same as questions asked in any century of publishing:
· Who will control the information?
· Who will decide what information people will see and what they won’t see?
· How and where will people find truly new, inventive ideas? (And not just cheap, commercial sloth.)
· Will gaming be the new film?
· Will people interact and change the stories they buy? Would this be a legitimate experience?
· Have we seen the end of poetry?
I do think we must think in multidisciplinary ways if we are to advance our literature, after all, no project is ever completed with only one subject. Even to write a short story, other fields are required in the content. And this is why European government grants for the arts and translation is so important – so that countries do hear and see new multidisciplinary ideas (no matter the form).
No project stands alone in a discipline, and yet, these very questions will likely consume traders year after year until the next ‘Gutenberg’, or new wave, appears.
On my way out and way home, I hand my Buchmesse pass to a girl with neon green hair and a long black cape and boots. Why shouldn’t she use it? No one ever checked it.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, in a couple of minutes the Frankfurt Book Fair will be closing for today. We thank you for your business and wish you a good day.”
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