Every year in March, Germany’s second-largest book fair takes place in Leipzig.
This year, 2,063 exhibitors from 43 countries presented 100,000 books in a 69,000-square-meter area. In the last few years, the book fair had 163,000 visitors—and this year two of Ylva Publishing’s authors were among them.
The book fair in Leipzig tries to put authors, publishers, and readers into direct contact. The book fair is a bit smaller than the one in Frankfurt, and the atmosphere is more relaxed—even though our brains and feet seemed to think otherwise after walking around the four halls for a few hours. Being surrounded by thousands of books and booklovers is an overwhelming experience.
We had some interesting discussions with the BücherFrauen, a network for women in publishing, and the VFLL, an editors’ association, as well as the developers of the writing software Papyrus Autor. They told us that there’ll be an English Version of their program within the year.
We also participated in lectures and discussions for authors and publishers, for example the “Dos and Don’ts in E-Book Publishing” or advice on “Online Book Marketing.”
The city also held a reading festival, “Leipzig liest” (“Leipzig reads”) with 2,800 readings and other events all over the city.
At the end of the day, we were exhausted, a little more well-informed, and motivated to work even harder on publishing the best books possible.
In future blog posts, we will tell you more about our visit in Leipzig, including our guided tour through the Museum of Printing Arts.
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