China takes centre stage.

It was also an opportunity for Hong Kong exhibitors to make the most of the occasion. Connie Wong, Marketing Director from Anpak Printing Limited said more attention was paid to Hong Kong presentations this year. The company took advantage of China being the partner country to highlight its range of children's books, calendars and greeting cards offered through its Hong Kong central control office and Shenzhen-based plant.

Mary Chan from Hong Kong's MCCM Creations said the firm participates every year, but benefited from the focus on Chinese publications. The company had a booth near the Chinese presentation in Hall 6, and Chan also took part in a panel discussion about women in publishing with Wang Fang, Vice President of Beijing's Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press (FLTRP).

Anpak: taking advantage of attention.		Chan: speaking on copyright.

Fang and Chan discussed copyright issues. "If I select a printing partner, then copyright protection is a vital topic," Chan said in the debate. Fang responded: "looking at our best sellers, 80% of the books distributed are pirated copies [on the Mainland]."

Hong Kong's unique publishing role.

Chan said Hong Kong publishers are in a unique position: they're able to publish in English or bilingually also in Chinese, offering a multicultural approach to the business internationally and regionally in Asia. She was particularly interested in forging greater ties with Eastern European countries and Scandinavia. Her company is currently tied with the Swiss Arts Council, producing a bilingual book about tales from the Swiss Alps, among other projects.

	Leung presented poems.

Big business in Chinese literature

Understandably, there was tremendous interest in Chinese literature during the event from 13 to 18 October and indeed Chinese publishers reported good business; more than 2,000 new contracts were closed at the fair, 1,300 of them for Chinese works which found their way to Germany, the US, the Czech Republic as well as the Iranian and Spanish markets.

Cultural analysis firm Rüdiger Wischenbart presented its listing of the top 40 international publishing houses. Pearson overtook Thomson Reuters and is the largest publishing house worldwide with revenues of US$7.4 billion in 2008.

Reed Elsevier ranked second and Thomson Reuters third on Wischenbart's list. Three Japanese companies were among the top 20.

Getting to grips with Chinese literature.		Reed Elsevier is number two in size.

Additionally, Higher Education Press (HEP) with revenues of US$379 million, ranked as the first Chinese company to join the listing, ranked 39.

There were mixed messages from a variety of markets. Russian authorities predicted a drop in book sales of 20% for 2009. Vladimir Grigoriev, the Deputy Head for the Federal Agency of Press and Mass Communications, said some 40% of Russians buy no books at all. On the other hand, in Spain, observers see high potential for sales despite the economic downturn.

Meanwhile, French publishers reportedly weathered the economic downturn well, as did the German book market.

E-book appearance, mixed outlook

E-books were much discussed, ensuring that the event was far more than a forum for authors, literary agents and publishers. There was a new meeting place for photo agencies and a very well attended conference entitled Tools of Change for Publishing, a primer for new publishers which was completely booked out.

That said, large audiences were drawn to appearances by best selling authors like Frank Schätzing, Cees Nooteboom and Nobel prize winner, Herta Müller.

Jürgen Boos, Director of the Book Fair said many publishers "found this fair to be the best in a long time". That was not so easy to prove: while 290,000 visitors attended the fair that was still 2.9% less than in record-breaking 2008. There was a deficit of 2.7% for trade visitors this time compared to last, although the number of literary agents increased 2.6%.

Debates on e-books and change.

The digitalisation of books, such as by search giant Google with Google Settlement and Amazon with it's Kindle reading device was a huge headline subject.

Roland Reuss, author of the Heidelberg Appeal debated digital issues with representatives from Google. German publishers and retailers voted for an opt-in solution for the publication of out-of-print-books on the Google platform. It means that the copyright owner has to explicitly provide permission before the publication can be scanned for online use.

Santiago de la Mora, Google's Representative, underlined the advantages of the opt-in solution. Nevertheless, the Federation of European Publishers asked for all European works to be excluded from the platform.

Amazon's reader Kindle was released the day after the fair, underlining the expectation that e-books are gaining in importance. For example, some 37% of all books in Germany are to be published as e-books, according to a recent survey.

Jonathan Nowell, President of Nielsen Book, predicted a dramatic growth in the e-book sector while Jane Friedman, the former CEO of HarperCollins spoke about the launch of her new company Open Road Integrated Media, which is publishing books with digital add-ons.

Even more popular is digital content among publishers of science and technology literature. Nearly all the big players, such as Springer, Elsevier, Wiley and Ingram are offering their products in e-book formats. Springer is publishing specifically for Amazon's new Kindle.

Books for kids received much attention.		Books for kids in Chinese a developing market.

Publishers are nevertheless concerned that national rights to publish a book might be difficult to control with the appearance of the e-book. But according to Amazon, customers will only be able to access content in their own country.

Robert Gottlieb from Trident Media Group however said he's concerned about the consequences for UK publishers facing competition from other markets. For alternative English-speaking countries like Australia, national borders seem irrelevant he said, and the UK could well become an open market for books.

from special correspondent Pia Grund-Ludwig, Frankfurt