BISG Staff Recap of Frankfurter Buchmesse 2024
BISG staff members Brian O’Leary (Executive Director), Brooke Horn (Operations Manager), and Liz Bartek (Marketing and Communications Manager) attended the 76th annual Frankfurt Book Fair, which according to reports, saw a 9% increase in attendance for the three trade-focused days of the event.
The BISG team kicked off the week with a very momentous and successful meeting of the Green Book Alliance (GBA), which is a joint effort of BISG, Book Industry Communication (BIC), and BookNet Canada, to improve sustainability in the book publishing supply chain. Responding to concerns that publishers and printers needed guidance on sustainability conversations, in 2023 the GBA published guidelines to aid discussion around multiple aspects of sustainability, including data collection and reporting.
Feedback at that time indicated that more specific guidance on what data to collect and report was needed. Twenty-five GBA members met for further discussion at a workshop on October 15 with many positive takeaways and agreed to meet at the 2025 London Book Fair to continue the discussion.
Immediately following the GBA workshop, BISG staff attended EDItEUR's annual International Supply Chain Seminar. BISG Executive Director Brian O’Leary presented an overview and update of the GBA workshop at the start of the meeting. To learn more about the Green Book Alliance or to join BISG at the meeting in March, please visit greenbookalliance.org.
On Wednesday, BISG staff attended both the Thema International Steering Committee and ONIX for Books International Steering Committee meetings. There were brief updates on Thema and ONIX use from National Groups and observers, including the US, and EDItEUR provided a list of the proposed new categories, qualifiers, and extensions for each. At the ONIX meeting, BISG’s Metadata Committee Chair Claire Holloway was voted in as the next ONIX committee chair.
"It’s an honor to be chosen for this role," Claire said in response to her appointment. "I hope my North American perspective and unique background of publishing, book distribution, and librarianship will prove useful to EDItEUR and the ONIX International Steering Committee over the course of my term. I look forward to getting started!"
After a morning packed with member meetings and check-ins, on Thursday afternoon, Brian participated in Klopotek’s keynote presentation, “Streamlined Processes and Optimized Metadata – Driving the Future of Publishing," in which he reiterated the importance of accurate metadata. He was joined on stage by James Whittaker (Chief Sales Officer, Klopotek) and Philipp Nastaly (Co-Founder and CEO, Chaptr).
Lastly, on Friday morning, BISG Rights Committee Chair Kris Kliemann hosted an information session on BISG's Proposed Standards for Translation Rights Royalty Statements. Attendees from several publishers discussed the proposed standards in detail and all were excited to see improvements and standardization to an otherwise messy and time-consuming process.
Throughout the week, there were many successful meetings with BISG members, prospective members, industry peers, and old and new friends alike.
In a post-fair press release, Karin Schmidt-Friderichs, Chairwoman of the German Publishers & Booksellers Association, said: “The book industry can look back on five successful days: Frankfurter Buchmesse has once again proven to be the main platform for exchange, networking and doing robust business. At the same time, it was a festival of ideas, debates, and new perspectives on today’s issues…”