~ by Ryan Hildebrand, Canadian Sales Manager
This April, we attended two important international book shows in which many of our customers participated.
The Bologna Book Fair focuses on children’s, comic, and Young Adult books. The focus of the fair is buying and selling rights. Publishers from countries around the world are buying and selling print rights, and in some cases film rights. The fair was incredibly busy with publishers from around the world, including many of our Friesens customers…approximately 32,000 professionals attended the show! The children’s book market remains very strong and is important to our business and continued growth at Friesens.
Festival du Livre Paris are books predominantly published in French. Many of our customers from Quebec are in attendance. It is a wonderful opportunity for us to better understand the markets we serve, meet with leaders of the publishing industry, and connect with new customers. One of the differences at this show is it is open to the public, meaning it’s not just publishing professionals in attendance, but book lovers are there purchasing books and meeting authors. Quebec was the “guest of honour” at the show, which adds another level of notoriety to those attending and gives special attention to the publishers and their books. We continue to build new relationships with both publishers in Quebec and those in France printing books for the Quebec market. After a bit of a challenging year in 2023, we expect improved results in this market for 2024!
