"It's nonsense, says reason.

It is what it is, says love.” Erich Fried's words on the shoulder bag at the Wagenbach stand describe quite well what the book business will be like in the pandemic summer of 2022.

Reason tells publishers and booksellers that after some life-threatening and some very good pandemic years, things have been dragging along listlessly for weeks.

Does it all make sense then?

Florian Balke

Culture editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

  • Follow I follow

The war puts customers in a bad mood to buy, the money that was put aside in many places during the lockdown and working from home is now being held back for the first gas bill shock after the price increase, confidence in visiting pedestrian zones and cultural events as a matter of course is on the wane simply not strong enough when Omikron variants fresh from the press appeared.

So the publishing and selling of books has not become nonsensical or unreasonable, but you can only get through it in a good mood at the moment if you have a lot of love for the thing.

30 publishers in the central library of the city library

Which of course the publishers who take part in the Frankfurt publishing show “069” do.

At the weekend they waited with excitement to see whether the book buyers felt the same as they did.

And if so, how many?

A look at the stands of the 30 or so publishers who are showing their goods and offering them for sale in the central library of the city library after a two-year pandemic break shows on Saturday that love is stronger than nonsense.

It may be busier outside on the Zeil and under the sunshades of the “Libretto” café than inside, but the aisles between the tables are so full that you just about feel comfortable when it comes to Corona.

This may be due to the fact that the young booksellers in training distribute flyers from the Media Campus of the Börsenverein in the Seckbach district of Frankfurt across the street in the Kleinmarkthalle.

Since it's warm like summer in the high hall, you're still happy that you don't sweat when you look at the offer, despite light clothing.

A publisher's employee has already brought out the fan.

Just selling it doesn't quite work out yet.

An acquaintance asks Gerd Fischer, the manager of Mainbook Verlag, whose stand is right at the entrance, how things are going.

The publisher shakes his head: "Not that great." But that doesn't really matter.

Every visitor and publisher experiences the most important thing this way: “People want to go out and look at books again.” Fischer was there in March 2019 at the first edition of the publishing show in the Evangelische Akademie am Römerberg and belongs to the association “Pro Libris “, which carries the publishing house show.

That's natural for him.

Even if the small fair seems to have turned out to be so sophisticated and literary this time that he is not at all in the right place with his genre goods – Mainbook mainly publishes local thrillers.

In addition, he now makes a good part of his sales with e-books and audio books.

Nevertheless, presence and responsiveness are always good.

Fischer has therefore already booked his stand at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October.

Tote bag full of books

On Saturday he shakes his head again at the sales figures at every stand. But everyone knows shopping in downtown Frankfurt well enough to know that hardly anyone likes to set off with a backpack or a tote bag full of books to go shopping or have a coffee or eat ice cream.

It is also quite possible that the central library, as a place where encounters with books for visitors are not otherwise directly linked to money, has yet to establish itself as an event location, says Franziska Neuhaus from Moritz Verlag.

Experienced members of the publishing house like you know the phenomenon from other weekend fairs – people look on Saturday and buy on Sunday.

At Schöffling & Co., visitors mainly ask about Peter Kurzeck, who will be relocated to Kaiserstrasse after the Stroemfeld Verlag has closed.

The new book from the estate of the author, who died in 2013, "And where my house" that will appear in a few weeks is still being printed and is not available at the stand.

Children's books are very popular with Fischer

At Fischer, visitors are particularly interested in the children's book, at the Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt at the other end of the room there is Rubik's Cube with Nino Haratischwili.

And at the stand of Elster & Salis from Zurich, a young visitor asks for a "hot tip about what you have to read".

The publishing house is one of the companies that the organizers have invited from other cities, from the criminal publishing house, which, like Wagenbach, came from Berlin, to Wallstein from Göttingen.

“From the current program?” asks the employee.

"Or at all," replies the customer.

She is handed a copy of Gábor Fónyad's novel When Jesus Came to the Puszta.

Austro-Hungarian books from Swiss publishers do not easily make it into every German bookshop.

After this conversation someone knows more about the work and the author.

The small sales shows organized by the independent publishers are also good for this.

As with the first time, booksellers from the region have once again announced their coming to the organizers.

What better opportunity could there be to round off your own range beyond the standard goods?

So everyone works with love against the nonsense.