Last Saturday, my colleague Koert van der Scheer and I visited the Frankfurt Book Fair – the biggest book fair in the world – in just one day (we caught an early train from Utrecht). We met with content distributers, content producers, people who are developing new content platforms, self-publishers and, of course, publishers.
Many countries showed off their best books, from Macedonia to New Zealand and beyond. We loved the positive vibe, the cultural exchanges and we were impressed by the beautiful stands of, for example, Thailand:
And this was Iran’s massive stand:
There was a lot of activity at Russia’s stand:
This year, in contrast to previous years, a bigger section of the Book Fair was reserved for self-publishers. Here are a four self-publishers sharing their experiences with a large, interested crowd:
We were amazed by the amount of translation grants made available by national governments. At this moment, we are compiling a list of countries that showed great interest in promoting their authors abroad and supporting this with grant possibilities.
It is our goal to actively help publishers and self-publishers finance quality translations. Translation is the best way to spread valuable cultural content and to connect people across linguistic barriers.