Frankfurt International Bookfair: Printed, Digital, We are Here - Snaphots & Links

Book Fair 2014 "We are Here"

This week, I visited the Frankfurt International Bookfair.

The slogan of the fair in 2014 is "Wir sind hier" - "We are here"

This is Frankfurt city centre and the fair area, seen from the Autobahn. 

And this right inside the fair, the first hall i visited, with a focus on Comics

Suprise: one of the largest booths in the hall belonged to Samsung. They were official partner of the book fair.

From Comics to the North: The guest of honor this year was Finland, and in the midst of all the buzz, they managed to create this special hall of space and calm, and of words spoken in Finnish – there was an author interview on, and just listening to the tune of Finnish was fascinating. It’s not an roman-based language, like most european languages, but runs on a different concept.

From the North, I moved to ... the digital future. The Fair had a special hot spot for digital themes and trends: Forum Zukunft. It was a bit hidden, though.... and turned out to be on the analog side of things. Well. This is "Forum Future" (no kidding.):

And next to the future, a panel for self-publishers. Which is a new thing for the fair:

The star of the day wasn't a book, or an established or upcoming author, but “Cro” – a german rap musician who is panda-masked, and who now wrote a book and gave a miniconcert on the open stage in the middle of the bookfair plaza. Spot the panda in the middle of the scene? That's him. 

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Of course, there was much more - German books, international books, authors, interviews, and all the sights of walking through a place where so many different readers and books and authors meet. 

Here's a snapshot with a double-meaning quote I liked: "Die Welt gehört denen, die auch im Netz gegen den Strom schwimmen" - "The world belongs to those who swim against the tide in the net, too." 

And a different kind of collage: the things I picked up along the way:

Some Links to Articles: 

• Frankfurt Book Fair 2014: Betting Big on Publishing’s Future
• Frankfurt: The next “big thing” is digital maturity
• At Frankfurt Book Fair: Between creativity and commerce
• E-books on the up in Germany - E-books are a major trend at the 2014 Frankfurt Book Fair.
• FutureBook Innovation Awards shortlists unveiled
• taz.de: Digitales auf der Buchmesse - Das Buchregal als Touchscreen
• Wiso: E-Books: Flatrate Angebote im Vergleich