By: Carlos Iñigo T. Roxas
The 2024 Frankfurt Book Fair (Frankfurter Buchmesse, or FBM) took place from Oct. 16 to 20, 2024, gathering publishers, authors and literary enthusiasts from around the globe. With a history spanning over 500 years, this annual fair remains one of the foremost events for trading book rights and fostering international literary exchanges.
The Philippines was well-represented with over 70 delegates attending, including renowned novelist and editor Cecilia Manguerra Brainard, who shared her experience of the fair.
Pitching
Brainard described the extent to which an agent helped her with FBM. “The publishers I met were actually already committed. I didn’t have to pitch at the site, but normally you would have to.” She pointed out that she had already done so online during a webinar called “Glimpse into Writing and Publishing in the Philippines” prior to the book fair.
With only 10 to 15 minutes for each pitch, she said the pitching procedure was extremely tense and nerve-racking. However, they had previously learned strategies from agents to deal with that. Making a comparison between the book you are pitching and a popular book is known as a “comp.”
“For example,” she said, “Alexander McCall Smith’s ‘The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency’ was the comp I used in my pitch for my book, ‘The Newspaper Widow.’ When a publisher or agent hears that, they know what your book is about instead of you droning on about the storyline.”
She added, “It’s not easy for us writers. One of the things I noticed is that if you’re contacting people just blindly, people do not respond. That is why you really need that person with connection. And because things are happening so fast, you’re supposed to line meetings way ahead of time. But even doing that is not easy because it’s difficult to contact publishers to schedule a meeting on such and such a date.”
Following the laborious “trade” phase, they completed the task. Brainard had secured arrangements with publishers from various nations with success. Translations of her novel “Magdalena” were sold to publishers from Greece, Serbia, Canada (French) and Egypt. While translation rights for “Newspaper Widow” were sold to Serbia, North Macedonia, Greece, Canada (French) and Egypt.
Mighty pen
In the last two remaining days, the book fair was opened to the public. Various exchanges and talks were held, with members of the Philippine delegation discussing our local works.
“Patricia Evangelista was able to give a talk on her book, ‘Some People Need Killing.’ Ambeth Ocampo and Jose ‘Butch’ Dalisay discussed Jose Rizal, and it was moderated by Sarge Lacuesta. Rizal is a big thing in Germany because he resided in Germany and his novel, ‘Noli Me Tangere,’ was published in Germany,” Brainard said.
Brainard herself gave a talk entitled “Can Fiction Change the World.” She told a story of a creative writing workshop she held for youth ex-gang members in the States. “They were tough kids,” she said, “teenagers with tattoos — what you’d call the bad kids. I taught them creative writing; I treated them like adults. There was one young kid named Reggie who wrote his first poem. Years later he wrote to me, informing me that he is now a counselor for young kids himself and that the workshop changed his life. So yes, fiction and poetry can change people.”
Indie press
She also took advantage of having a lesser packed schedule to address the goal of starting an Indie press in Cebu. “Hope Sabanpan-Yu and I, both hailing from Cebu, were talking that we need an Indie press because we don’t have an Indie Press in Cebu. So we were looking at Pawikan, an Indie Press in Mindanao, as well as Kristian Cordero’s Savage Mind. So I said ‘that’s what we need in Cebu because our young people do not have a press that can publish their Cebuano poems and Cebuano stories.’”
Brainard developed this notion when she held a talk at the University of the Philippines in Cebu, recalling how some young people were rewriting their Cebuano poems into Tagalog so that they might be published in Manila. “So now we’re talking about starting an indie press in Cebu, possibly working with (National Artist for Literature) Resil Mojares, so in that way we’d have a small press for fellow Cebuano writers.”
“I think that a place like that, even though we’re talking about Euros and Dollars, has to do with books, and it has to do with ideas. Even though there are just short exchanges, there are connections and it’s all centering around love for books,” she said.