36 hours at the Frankfurt Book Fair - Nosy Crow Skip to content
Posted by Tom, October 11, 2013

36 hours at the Frankfurt Book Fair

Our rights team are still hard at work selling to foreign publishers at the Nosy Crow stand at the Frankfurt Book Fair, but my flying visit has come to an end and I’m back in the Crow’s Nest – tired, happy, and starting to feel the after-effects of a whirlwind trip and only a few hours sleep.

I went to Frankfurt on the invitation of the Fair itself, who’d asked me to speak at two events: a Q&A discussion on the Publishing Perspectives stage, and a three-hour panel session alongside Francesca Dow, of Penguin, and Jonas Schenk, of Oetinger, as part of the Frankfurt Academy Programme, entitled ‘Children’s and YA Book Market: From Idea to Product World’.

Both events saw some spirited and lively discussion on the merits and risks associated with making apps, the future of digital publishing, and how we can best create really engaging reading experiences for children, on screen and in print. Unfortunately I didn’t really have the wherewithal to arrange for anyone to take pictures, but here’s a write-up of the Publishing Perspectives discussion, for the Book Fair blog. And here’s a photo I did take, during the Q&A with Jamie Byng, CEO of Canongate, on the Publishing Perspectives stage:

Thankfully, in between these events I also had the opportunity to see some of the rest of the (ENORMOUS) fair, spend some time at the eye-catching Nosy Crow stand, speak to some of our great foreign publishing partners, and meet some interesting new people doing exciting things in digital innovation.


The fantastic Beltz & Gelberg stand in Hall 3, featuring a familiar-looking family


The Nosy Crow rights team, hard at work meeting foreign publishers.


The Grunts series author Philip Ardagh with Kate at the Nosy Crow stand.

And the trip ended on a high note – as I was leaving, we learnt that Nosy Crow has been shortlisted for two FutureBook Innovation Awards! Rounds: Parker Penguin and Axel Scheffler’s Flip Flap Farm are both shortlisted in the Best Children’s Digital Book category – the winner will be announced at the FutureBook Conference next month.

Here’s the trailer for Rounds: Parker Penguin:

Find it on the App Store.

And here’s a short trailer for Axel Scheffler’s Flip Flap Farm:

Find it on the App Store.

This was my first time at Frankfurt, and even though my experience involved a LOT less work than that of the rest of our team, it was still great to get a flavour of the fair – I can’t wait to go back next year!

See more: