The Warsaw Book Fair has evolved from a business-only mixer to what sponsors are now billing as an east-meets-west literary lotusland. Brenda Segel, VP Director of Subsidiary Rights for HarperCollins, contributes to this report from the front lines.
As a first-time visitor to the Warsaw Book Fair, I found myself very pleasantly surprised. This busy, productive fair took place from May 15-19 at the Palace of Culture (a huge edifice hated by the Poles because it was a gift from Stalin), and it has become a rollicking Warsaw tradition. The first two days are for professionals and media only, and the next three days are open to the public, who swarmed the gates in such numbers (36,000 visitors hit the fair) that they reportedly had to wait nearly an hour to buy a ticket on May 19. Publishers are there to sell books to the public, and booths were well staffed. (Janusz Folger, the new chairman of fair sponsor Ars Polona, said more than 500 exhibitors from 24 countries were in attendance. Though this figure is down from 800 in recent years, Folger told the press he’s dropping the “artificial statistics” and only counting “serious exhibitors.”) Though this is not a rights fair, I and my colleague Lara Allen made appointments with publishers at their booths, and also worked in quality time with our agents in Poland. (The fair’s actually a nice warm-up for the Moscow International Book Fair on Sept. 4-9, and for Moscow’s new Non/Fiction Book Fair, on Nov. 27-Dec. 1.)
Clearly, Poles are avid readers, and while you’ll find lots of brand-name bestsellers (Harry Potter was Poland’s bestselling title in 2001), there’s even more literature, from the classics to new voices. I was amazed at how far they’ve come from the Stalin days, in terms of packaging and marketing. Granted, this is not the best moment for Poland’s economy. The Polish News Bulletin reported that though the nation’s book market grew 7.7% last year, the collapse of three major distributors — Liber, Kwadro, and Swiatowid, which together controlled some 11% of the market — has set off industry tremors. The number of titles published fell by 5% last year to about 149,000, Poland’s two largest wholesalers reported losses, and retailers were said to be dumping stock at cut-rate prices. Still, you’d hardly know it from the book fair or the book stores. At the big Empik chain in both Warsaw and Crakow, the aisles were crowded. There are generally three floors of books, which are nicely displayed on tables, in corrugation and endcaps. You’ll find everything from new releases to travel and children’s books. I was especially happy, of course, to see so many HarperCollins and Morrow authors in translation, from Joyce Carol Oates, William Kowalski, Wally Lamb, Rebecca Wells, and Isabel Allende to John Gray, Marilyn Manson, and Eminem.
