EIBF is back from another -the 75th!- edition of the Frankfurt Book Fair *FBF(. Keep reading to discover some of the highlights of our participation this year at the biggest book fair in the world. 

Opening ceremony 

The 2023 edition of the Frankfurt Book Fair kicked off, as every year, with an opening ceremony at the Congress Centre of the Frankfurter Messe. 

This year’s FBF marked a significant 75th anniversary of the world’s largest trade book fair, which was celebrated with an opening video that evoked some key moments in the history of this event. 

In front of a well-attended auditorium, the ceremony was joined by high-profile figures, including the German minister for Culture, Claudia Roth; the mayor of Frankfurt, Mike Josef; the director of the Frankfurter Buchmesse, Juergen Boos, and Karin Schmidt-Friderichs, Chairwoman of the German Publishers & Booksellers Association (Börsenverein). 

Slovenia, with its slogan ‘Honeycomb of words’, was the guest of honour country in the present edition of the fair, a role that was celebrated on stage by the President of Slovenia, Nataša Pirc Musar. Representing the country’s literary talent, the opening ceremony welcomed onstage the poet Miljana Cunta and the renowned Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek. 

Following a controversial speech from Žižek that, primarily addressing the Israel-Hamas war, prompted interruptions from part of the audience, Mr. Boos went back onstage to point out the Book Fair’s function as a place where freedom and tolerance have a central role. After that, Ms. Schmidt-Friderichs declared the 75th-anniversary edition of Frankfurter Buchmesse open. 

Day 1 

The first day at the fair started for the EIBF team with an agenda full of meetings and events with various stakeholders. 

In the morning, we had the opportunity to attend a presentation on the European book market statistics of 2022, an event from our colleagues at the Federation of European Publishers (FEP). 

Ricardo Franco Levi, FEP President, and Enrico Turin, FEP Deputy Director and Economist, announced that total turnover for the analysed markets in 2022 experienced a +1.3% from 2021. The data also presented a rebound in sales from bookshops, which grew their share as the main distribution channel for book sales. 

The morning continued with several meetings and events, including the opening of the Bulgarian stand at the fair. 

On Wednesday afternoon, EIBF's Policy Advisor Daniel Martín Brennan, joined a panel discussion at the International Publishers Association (IPA)'s 3rd Sustainability Summit. Daniel went through some initiatives from the RISE Bookselling project, explaining how sustainability is at their very core and a cross-cutting priority (the “S” stands for Sustainability after all!). For instance, the Industry Insights on Book Returns is a unique resource that sheds light on the returns dynamics across different book markets, exploring what works, what doesn’t, how sustainable these practices actually are and how we can make the process more efficient and with a lower environmental impact. 

At the same time, the Frankfurt Studio was home to an event with winners of the European Union Prize for Literature (EUPL), where Jasmin B. Frelih, 2016 winner from Slovenia, and the 2022 winner, Georgian author Iva Pezuashvili, sat down and discussed with Martina Vidaić, the winner of the present edition of the EUPL. 

Later that day, we listened in to the event “From Inclusion to Innovation: How Accessibility is Transforming the Book Value Chain” to get up to date with initiatives within the book sector and upcoming European legislation on accessibility. Most highlighted was the European Accessibility Act, an EU Directive coming to force in June 2025, obliging products and services to be accessible to people with various forms of disabilities. In the book world, this directive will apply primarily to e-books and retailers’ websites. 

To complete this eventful first day, EIBF celebrated the traditional dinner with members, ahead of the Annual Conference. This evening was an occasion to celebrate a year especially significant for EIBF, as it saw the 1st RISE Bookselling Conference, held in Prague last March. 

Day 2 

The second day at the Frankfurt Book Fair started with the 2023 EIBF Annual Conference, gathering most of our members, as well as new partners, booksellers and representatives of the book industry from across the world. 

The programme kicked off with a keynote speech by bookseller and EIBF’s Executive Committee member Iris Hunscheid, who shared the innovative contributions of MVB’s Lesemotive, an AI tool that helps booksellers arrange their store based on customers’ reading rationales. 

On behalf of the guest of honour country, Slovenian literary agent Zala Zagorsek Golob, member of the independent publishing house VigeVageKnjige, offered a fascinating take on the book market in her country. 

The audience was also able to listen to a panel session on the topic of banned books in the US, in which booksellers Kate Layte (Papercuts Bookshop, Boston, MA) and Cheryl Lee (44th & 3rd Bookseller in Atlanta, GA) sat down with EIBF’s Policy Advisor, Daniel Martín Brennan, to exchange views on this urgent issue that underscores big concerns about freedom of expression in the country. 

After a short break, the conference welcomed onstage Georg Haeusler, Director of Culture, Creativity and Sport at DG EAC, European Commission, who delivered an address to the book sector, praising its role as an essential contributor to the sharing of knowledge and culture across countries. 

Hazel Kenyon, Director of Book Research at NielsenIQ, was in charge of offering an exhaustive analysis of the book trends that are currently gaining traction around the world, paying particular attention to the direction in which these trends might indicate the market is heading. 

Finally, the EIBF conference also gave space to this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair International Translators Programme, with a panel session that explores the often overlooked role that translators play in bringing literature closer to other cultures. This panel was moderated by John Mutter, editor-in-chief at Shelf Awareness, and featured Sulagna Mukhopadhyay, a translator and teacher from India, and Tiya Hapitiawati, translator and acquisition editor at the publisher Moooi Pustaka, in Indonesia. 

Next up was the EIBF’s General Assembly, where we presented an overview of EIBF’s policy and communications activities over the past year. The GA also served as an opportunity to present the different calls to action from RISE Bookselling’s campaign on ‘Reviving the high street’. 

In parallel to this, EIBF also facilitated a meeting with different bookselling schools from around Europe. Representatives from L’École de la Librairie (France), Scuola Librai Italiani (Italy), Fundación Germán Sánchez Ruiperez (Spain) and MediaCampus Frankfurt (Germany), exchanged views on how the bookselling profession is formally trained in their respective countries, and laid the groundworks for a more regular collaboration, aimed at sharing information and best practices with each other to improve the professionalization of the next generation of booksellers.  

After these two days of relentless meetings and events, that was another edition of the Frankfurt Book Fair under the belt of the EIBF team. Back in Brussels, it’s time to take stock of the key learnings of this experience and employ them to the best advantage in our future activities! 

The European & International Booksellers Federation – EIBF – warmly welcomes the unanimous decision of the Economic and Financial Affairs Council (Ecofin) of 2 October, which will allow Member States who so wish to apply reduced rates of VAT to electronic publications, including e-books

EIBF co-Presidents Fabian Paagman and Jean-Luc Treutenaere commented: “EIBF has been advocating against tax discrimination on e-books for many years and the decision of lowering VAT rates on e-books is the result of the lobbying efforts of the bookselling sector at European level, represented by EIBF. Today’s decision finally resolves a long-standing issue. Whether a book is paper or digital, ordered online or bought in a shop, different tax treatment that hampers access to books should be avoided. From now on VAT rates on paper books and e-books will be aligned (if Members States so whish), a measure which will boost the e-book market and will further stimulate reading.”

The proposal agreed today by all Member States, will allow – but not oblige – Member States to align the rates of e-publications to those of printed publications. The new rules will apply temporarily, pending the introduction of a new, ‘definitive’ VAT system. The directive will be adopted without further discussion once the text has been finalised in all official languages.

The European & International Booksellers Federation – EIBF – warmly welcomes the outcome of yesterday’s vote at the European Parliament, confirming the von der Leyen Commission. We wish to congratulate President von der Leyen and the entire college of Commissioners for this success and wish them a fruitful and productive 5-year term.

The European & International Booksellers Federation represents national booksellers associations in the European Union and beyond. Through its member associations, EIBF speaks on behalf of more than 25,000 individual bookshops, whose role in society is essential as places of culture and in supporting learning and literacy.

EIBF co-President Jean-Luc Treutenaere commented: “We especially applaud the addition of culture to the portfolio title of Commissioner Mariya Gabriel, a change which recognises its constitutive role for an EU that lives up to its motto: united in diversity.”

EIBF co-President Fabian Paagman added: “We truly hope that the Commission’s upcoming proposals will strive to promote a competitive business environment while ensuring a level playing field among all retailers online and offline. We welcome the appointment of Vice-President Margrethe Vestager whose work over the past five years has been of huge importance to booksellers and the international bookselling community”

EIBF will closely follow the work of the new Commission, as more than ever, the prosperous future of the European bookselling industry lies in the hand of decision makers. Public policies which guarantee a healthy and diverse offer to consumers, as well as a rich and varied network of bookshops, will help to build and transmit our European culture, history and knowledge to the next generation.

For further information, please contact:
EIBF Director Julie Belgrado (julie.belgrado@europeanbooksellers.eu or +32 494 67 95 07) 

On Monday, 2nd December 2019, the European & International Booksellers Federation (EIBF) was delighted to participate in the first-ever “Symposium on Amazon’s unchecked power”. Hosted by UNI Global Union and the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), the event gathered EU policy-makers, experts and regulators, union leaders, small business representatives and NGOs in Brussels.

At the full-day symposium, a series of panels laid bare the grave consequences of Amazon’s business model and practices for the economies and societies where it is active, particularly by engaging in systematic tax avoidance, compounding the climate crisis and undermining labour rights as well as privacy and digital rights.

During a panel centred around the topic of “Amazon’s monopoly power: threats to a fair marketplace”, booksellers were represented by Meryl Halls, Managing Director of the Booksellers Association of the United Kingdom and Ireland (BA) and EIBF Executive Committee member. Halls summarised the event as follows:

“It was inspiring and energising to take part in the Amazon Symposium in Brussels on 2nd December, with EIBF Director, Julie Belgrado.  We gathered with global group of those interested in the ‘unchecked power of Amazon’, from unions keen to re-establish workers’ rights, to competition specialists, from social justice campaigners to climate justice activists, and we were very proud to represent bookselling in this group.  We outlined the impact of Amazon on bookselling in the UK and across Europe and we were resolute in laying out the colossal impact Amazon has had on the bookselling sector, with its unfair competitive advantages in many tax jurisdictions, its widescale tax avoidance activities and its monopolistic and anti-competitive behaviour – at the same time as flying the flag for the incredible work booksellers across the world are doing to counter the impact of Amazon.  We need concrete global action to alleviate the impact of the monopolistic behaviour and look forward to working with partners to make this happen, in the UK and in the European Union.”

The timing of this event is critical, coinciding with the first formal day in office for the recently confirmed European Commission under President Ursula von der Leyen. EIBF will constructively engage with the EU institutions to ensure that fair competition ranks highly on the EU agenda, and lend its full support to policy responses which seek to put a check on Amazon’s monopolistic behaviour in Europe and further afield.

About EIBF: The European and International Booksellers Federation represents national booksellers associations in the European Union and beyond. EIBF Members in turn have in membership booksellers of all kinds: brick and mortar bookshops, online bookshops, independents, chains.

For further information, please contact:
EIBF Director Julie Belgrado (julie.belgrado@europeanbooksellers.eu or +32 494 67 95 07)

In a series of infographics, we will try to shed some light on the more technical elements of bookselling. This chart illustrates the e-book sales process from a bookseller’s perspective: Profit margins and uncertainty, market dynamics, the necessity of innovative solutions and adaptability, and relationships with other stakeholders in the eco-system of the book chain.

In a series of infographics, we will try to shed some light on the more technical elements of bookselling. This chart illustrates the average profit for e-book sales when all expenses have been paid.