Publishers, authors and agents crowding the world's largest book fair in Frankfurt this week declared their profession ready for the digital age, but said they were convinced paper and ink had a future.
Every table is taken and there is a real buzz.
It is as good as I've known it in the last 10 years, John Lyon of Time Warner Trade Publishing said. While the Frankfurt fair, which has attracted almost 7,000 publishers from 107 countries, looks unlikely to yield this year's major bestseller, the success of J.K. Rowling's teenage wizard Harry Potter has cast a spell on the industry. There is no question about it. The Harry Potter success has brought people into the bookshops across the world, Lyon said. It is important that more kids are reading.