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November 06, 2007
One belated Frankfurt impression
I’ve been remiss again, and traveling too much. And buried in long edits. But I did want to say one thing about Frankfurt.
What struck me most there was that (in every pavilion save the US/UK building 8) the air was constantly humming with gently authoritative voices. The sounds were the voices of authors, speaking over small P.A. systems in their publishers’ booths, each one addressing a crowd of some size — 20 or 30 people at each booth who had stopped to hear what the author had to say.
And even though I didn’t know the musician who drew the huge crowds at his signing in the courtyard, still I imagine that not many of the talking, illuminating, lecturing authors inside were media stars or other celebrities.
ARE there other celebrities anymore?
In the US/UK pavilion, such a thing would not have been seen, as an opportunity for an author to address his or her readers directly. To the world we publish in, an open microphone would appear only as an intrusion on the air space of a rival publisher. This would have been the case even though the speakers were not really audible beyond about 20 feet from the booths where they spoke. Building 8 seemed all too familiar.
In addition to those little Vorlesungen (whatever that means), I counted four sites at the Fair in which authors were being interviewed on makeshift television sound stages. The interviews were ongoing, day in and out, and yet always well attended. Yes, I realize that there were chairs and benches in front of those authors and that places to sit are rare in any trade show. But many in the audience were standing; and many of those had to follow the interview on the monitors mounted over their heads. I’m sure that at least one of those stages was feeding a live broadcast.
The effect all this had on me was a reasserted feeling that it is possible for authors and their ideas to matter. And it is possible for them to matter specifically to readers.
Too often here it seems we care only for writers with platforms.
This week, over too much coffee in Cherry Creek, I was asked what in all the changes that the industry is undergoing might be a reason to be hopeful. My answer has been the same for some time. What seemed to be the case in Frankfurt remains feasible here. And it seems feasible precisely because the technological changes in the delivery of texts and the ongoing behavior changes in the US reading public together bring us nearer and nearer to the moment when what a publisher publishes is once again more important than how the publisher publishes.
Fred Ramey
Posted November 6
Posted in: Publishers Blog, | Keywords: publishers blog
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