In March and April, the NetGalley team attended the Audio Publishers Association Conference (APAC), London Book Fair, Festival des Livres Paris (Paris Book Festival), Leipziger Buchmesse (Leipzig Book Fair), and the Book Industry Study Group (BISG) annual meeting. This month (May), we—along with our Firebrand Group colleagues—look forward to the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) Publishing University, Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA) Leadership Summit, and Publishers Weekly U.S. Book Show. Scroll to the end of this article to set up a meeting with our teams!
Read all of our spring conference wrap ups:
Leipziger Buchmesse (Leipzig Book Fair)
Leipzig Book Fair is one of Germany’s two famous book fairs with century-long tradition. While the bigger, more international one in Frankfurt is known as the industry event, Leipzig is the fair for the public. And after a three year break due to the pandemic, the public was clearly very keen to return: A record-breaking 274,000 visitors came to browse the newest books, meet their favorite authors, listen to interviews and discussions on one of the many stages (on the fairground and all over town), or to just connect with other book lovers. That’s not to say that the industry does not meet in Leipzig as well. 2,000 exhibitors from 40 countries attended to present their books, authors and book-related products. Since face-to-face meetings have been greatly missed, we took the chance to connect with some of our clients, partners and interested publishers.
Besides giving a quick update on the growth of our member community and its constantly rising activity, the main point of those short meetings was to listen to our clients’ needs and valuable feedback, to start strategizing for upcoming titles, and to answer questions. We discussed industry trends, such as the ongoing growth for the audiobook format, which is a rising source of income for most publishers.
One trend that was very noticeable in Leipzig is the growing importance of Manga and Manga readers for the book industry. The Manga-Comic-Con happens every year at the same time and at the same location as the book fair, and thousands of people attend dressed as their favorite characters. We’ve heard from a few publishers who will enter that market in the upcoming months and have high expectations.
Topics that frequently came up were rising costs for printed ARCs, budget cuts, thoughts about sustainability, and how much more important NetGalley has become for publishers due to these changes. Even publishers who have been using NetGalley for years are seeing even more added value in the platform.
We also heard positive feedback regarding our latest feature updates: The Profile Walkthrough has led to significantly more meaningful member profiles, and the notes that publishers can add to members’ profiles help to create an easy, consistent workflow when several employees are managing requests.
Another takeaway from the fair: Our clients strongly prefer in-person presentations over an email or a PDF file—which is why we do follow-up training calls with publishers who have further questions and/or changing workflows or staff. And why, throughout all meetings, we solidified the idea of presenting the results of our currently-running member survey in a webinar for all publishers to attend.
We’re looking forward to these follow-up meetings and to seeing everyone again in Frankfurt in October!
Number of publishers we met with: 23
Thank you to the nearly 60 publishers we’ve met with at these spring conferences! It’s always a pleasure to speak with the passionate members of our client community, and we’ve been inspired by our conversations.
Read our next installment, covering the Festival des Livres Paris!
Find us here in May:
- May 5-6: IBPA Publishing University
- Meet with Kristina Radke (VP of Business Growth & Engagement) and Katie Versluis (Customer Success Manager), NetGalley
- concierge [at] netgalley.com
- May 9-10: ECPA Leadership Summit
- Meet with Joshua Tallent, Director of Sales and Education, Firebrand Technologies
- info [at] firebrandtech.com
- May 23-25: Publishers Weekly U.S. Book Show
- We are thrilled to sponsor this event. Find us at the NetGalley Pub Hub!
