Melville House Books

So the Frankfurt Book Fair is long over, and all the stories that are coming out are out. As it’s become the event by which the world-wide book industry takes measure of itself — when key trends and issues are either born or go to die — it seems like a good time to consider what the take-away was of this year’s version.

There was, of course, the most perverse publicity stunt of all time — promotional material tied to the legs of hundreds of flies set free in the hall (see this item from an earlier Moby). There was a fairly decisive stand by Fair organizers for free speech when guest of honor China wanted to suppress criticism (see the Moby story) that was subsequently bobbled when, er, someone whom the Fair subsequently fired prevented dissidents from speaking anyway (read it here).

There was super-agent Robert Gottlieb accusing European publishers of not being smart enough to know individually that advances are insane, plus that there’s a world-wide recession of historic proportions (he accused them of colluding to lower advances for US rights, as this Publishers Weekly story detailed).

Better, perhaps, to look at some of the panels and discussions to find out what the workers of the industry see happening. And former Soft Skull publisher Richard Nash, now the head of Cursor, does exactly that in this pithy commentary on his blog. And if those discussions are a good indication of what’s to come, hold on to your hats. Nash says we’re going to be in long-term reinvention:

What this means is that we (publishers, authors, agents) are going to need to make decisions based on the world that is (people will make unauthorized copies, people will undercut your price), rather than the world we will wish for. Until recently, it was not clear that the publishing industry accepted this, but these statements by Richard Charkin, Victoria Barnsley and other industry decision-makers are powerful indicators that this approach has solidified to the point of consensus.

Dennis Johnson is the founder of MobyLives, and the co-founder and co-publisher of Melville House.