LID Publishing’s Managing Director, Martin Liu, gave an insight into what Frankfurt Book Fair looks like for a publisher. We asked him six key questions to find out more.
How many years has LID Publishing been going to FBF?
LID has been at Frankfurt for the past 20 years.
How has LID’s presence at FBF changed over the years?
During the past six years, LID has taken a more prominent position by exhibiting in the UK and US section of the Bookfair (the famous “Hall 8”, but which was recently moved to Hall 6 – not quite the same!).
What do you want people to know about LID Publishing’s market and business?
We are keen to demonstrate that LID is a creative, international and marketing-led publisher of business and self-development books. This year, several publishing peers commented that our Spring 2019 list was noticeably stronger than previous lists, which was encouraging.
Since last year’s FBF, LID has moved further into the wellbeing and design book markets. What does the future hold for the expansion of LID?
The future of LID Publishing lies very much in business and self-development, for which we want to gain greater recognition. Wellbeing has recently incorporated itself into business, and so, it makes good sense for us to extend into this. The LID model of helping authors demonstrate their expertise and brand through publications also works well in other sectors (such as architecture, design, food & beverage). However, our future expansion will be driven by the categories of business and self-development, and expanding this geographically (especially China and India).
For those who don’t know; how does a leading book fair work?
Frankfurt is the most important and largest bookfair in the world, so it is somewhat unique. The main activity at a bookfair is selling and/or buying (some do both). LID focuses mainly on selling – translation rights for our titles to foreign publishers. Since the good and mighty in publishing attend Frankfurt, it also offers a very good opportunity to network and catch up. But, for me, a good bookfair tends to be decided by how much interest we manage to attract to our titles.
What does a typical day for a publisher look like at a book fair?
I can’t speak for everyone, but here’s my typical day during the Frankfurt Bookfair. Wake up quite early; get to the Messe (to beat the crowds and delays caused by security checks); have a massive breakfast (because you probably won’t have time for lunch). First meeting is 9.30 – it’s with a publisher, who you have probably met many times before at bookfairs. You spend five minutes catching up on work and life. And then you spend the next 25 minutes pitching some of your new titles (with each publisher, you kind of know what they are looking for). This repeats itself every half an hour until 6pm. This year, Sara and I had 89 meetings in total. But meeting with other publishers is one of the best things about the Bookfair. Around this time of day, someone is having a drinks party on their stand, so you might get a drink and talk to someone you know. Then, you go to your dinner appointment – for example, each Thursday of the Frankfurt Bookfair, for the past 15 years or so, we have had our dinner for the Business Publishers Roundtable (publishers from up to 20 countries). And for those diehards, the evening finishes with drinks at some favourite bar. This is usually repeated the next day.
To find out more about LID Publishing and our story, click here.
To find out more about Martin Liu, click here.
Comments are closed