Programme: Frankfurt International Booksellers

What is the focus of your bookshop as well as your personal focus as a bookseller? At the beginning of my way, I only needed books for myself, but as my life’s work developed, I was surprised to learn that there are people facing a similar issue, and I can solve this. The focus of my bookshop as well as my personal focus is to make books in foreign languages available for the people in Kyrgyzstan, and become a safe environment for the youth to explore choices through reading different sources. What do you expect from the Frankfurt International Booksellers Programme? Frankfurt International Booksellers Programme is my stepping stone to expanding my reach and network to make my dream come to life: more books, more fruitful cooperation routes, and more giving back.

What is the focus of your bookshop as well as your personal focus as a bookseller? The Seminary Co-op is the first not-for-profit bookstore whose mission is bookselling. Founded in 1961 and located in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood, the Seminary Co-op is renowned as an exemplary academic bookstore, attracting customers nationally and internationally. Its inventory reflects the literary and scholarly interests of its membership, many of them affiliated currently or previously with its neighbor, the University of Chicago.57th St. Books was established in 1983 and caters to the literary interests of the greater South Side community through a world-class children’s department, a deep backlist selection, and an enthusiastic staff.Both stores are unique and valued places of discovery, cultural institutions where browsing and conversation are nurtured. In 2019, the Seminary Co-op Bookstores, Inc. became the country’s first not-for-profit bookstores whose mission is bookselling. What do you expect from the Frankfurt International Booksellers Programme? I hope to leave the Frankfurt International Booksellers Programme with a deeper appreciation of the shared endeavors, joys, challenges, and possibilities facing booksellers in the 21st century. I aspire to also establish collegial relationships that extend beyond the program and remain throughout my tenure in the profession.

What is the focus of your bookshop as well as your personal focus as a bookseller? The Llibreria Finestres was founded just over a year ago as a result of patronage. The aim was to build an international and independent humanities bookshop that would provide Barcelona and the city's readers with a collection of around 65,000 copies in nine languages and a regular programme with leading authors from all over the world. In March this year we opened the Art and Comic bookstore. Smaller (about 12,000 copies) but with the same ambition of becoming not only a risky and militant bookshop, but also a meeting point with the most innovative authors and publishers in the world of art books, design, architecture, photography, music, film and, of course, comics.As an art bookseller, my priority is prescription, in all its aspects: to offer the books our customers need (even imported ones published by tiny publishers), in a way that readers can find complementary titles they didn't know about, and hopefully before an algorithm offers them. What do you expect from the Frankfurt International Booksellers Programme? From this programme I would like to achieve a better knowledge of the German market, especially the art book market. With the intention of improving our relationship and making it more fluid and solid and to generate confidence and exchanges: to bring authors and present German publishers in our bookshop, for example; and even to get a logistic consolidator who can allow us to import books also from the most modest publishers at a competitive price and with competitive conditions. On the other hand, I am particularly interested in sharing our problems and experiences with booksellers from all over the world in order to find new solutions to common situations, new tools, synergies and working methods.

What is the focus of your bookshop as well as your personal focus as a bookseller? With more than 14 000 titles lining our shelves and references to 260 languages, our shop is a magnet for teachers, learners and language lovers. We carry the biggest selection of language methods in North America and provide an exceptional service with special orders. Our multilingual employees are experts in languages and they are more than happy to find the material that will match their customers needs. What do you expect from the Frankfurt International Booksellers Programme? Keep on working on a network of suppliers, perhaps with booksellers in countries not structured as our Quebec market for French books.

What is the focus of your bookshop as well as your personal focus as a bookseller? Baobá International Bookshop specialises in illustrated books for children and adults. Like the tree that is also its namesake, it is meant to be a haven for stories and a reservoir of life to all those who cross its doors. Although illustration is the focus of the bookshop, we choose books in which the text is up to the standard of the illustration. Baobá also hosts activities to promote reading and visual literacy for children, young people and adults. As a bookseller, my aim is to provide readers of all ages with a varied but high-quality range of illustrated books, mixing well-known books cherished by the public with a new, unexpected and thought-provoking selection. What do you expect from the Frankfurt International Booksellers Programme? Through the Frankfurt International Booksellers Programme, I hope to be able to meet booksellers and publishers from Germany and other parts of the world in order to exchange experiences and discuss solutions and strategies to face common challenges. I’m also looking to get to know the German market and its production better, as we would like to expand our offer of German-language titles at Baobá. Baobá is very keen on networking and developing long-lasting partnerships as a result of this Fellowship.

What is the focus of your bookshop as well as your personal focus as a bookseller? Import and distribution scientific books, textbooks, trade and children literature. fulfillment of customer orders for each issued title. What do you expect from the Frankfurt International Booksellers Programme? Meet interesting people from all over the world who deal with work similar to mine on a daily basis. Find out how they work with suppliers and distributors, what they offer customers.

What is the focus of your bookshop as well as your personal focus as a bookseller? El Sótano is a 55-year-old company that believes in bibliodiversity and has the largest catalogue in Mexico. We have the conviction and commitment to actively participate in developing the Latin American book market.What do you expect from the Frankfurt International Booksellers Programme? Exchange experiences, data, and action plans with booksellers from other countries so that together, try to build a global platform of best practices for booksellers.

What is the focus of your bookshop as well as your personal focus as a bookseller? We do believe nowadays human being, who is getting more and more modernized and digitized, still need to be surrounded by words, papers and books and that’s why a local bookshop like Ameh Bookstore must survive breathing. What do you expect from the Frankfurt International Booksellers Programme? Frankfurt International Booksellers Programme can play a key role to impress the world by its year's experiences which have obtained specially on modern publishing industries introducing fixed book price issues far reaching.

What is the focus of your bookshop as well as your personal focus as a bookseller? Funky Rainbow is a travelling children’s bookshop run by writers, illustrators and creative professionals with the aim of introducing books to young audiences. Our books are curated for readers between 0-18 years and represent the best of Indian children’s writing. Funky Rainbow won the Best Bookstore, Bengaluru Award at the Kidsstoppress Awards 2018. We were the only independent children's bookstore from India to be invited to the prestigious Bologna Children's Book Fair 2021 to be a part of the Third International Conference of Children's Bookstores. We were also part of the first-ever International Booksellers' Conference in Sharjah in 2022. As a bookseller and book curator, what I try to do every day is to bring books and children together in exciting and innovative ways. What do you expect from the Frankfurt International Booksellers Programme? I hope the Frankfurt International Booksellers programme will give me an opportunity to explore the world of German book publishing and explore opportunities to include German children’s books published in English into Funky Rainbow’s diverse book collection. I would also like to meet with other booksellers from across the world participating in the programme and book fair to gain an overview of global trends and best practices in bookselling and publishing.

What is the focus of your bookshop as well as your personal focus as a bookseller? We created Booktalks in 2013. Ιt is a small indie bookcafe that focuses on literature we love, both fiction and non-fiction. We host a lot of book presentations, workshops of creative writing and reading, we have several book clubs, a literary blog and a very active facebook group. We like to interact with the readers, to get to know our customers. What do you expect from the Frankfurt International Booksellers Programme? From the Frankfurt International Booksellers Programme, I expect to exchange knowledge with my colleagues all over the world and learn more about the German book industry, how the market works, what we can do to make our business grow. And to make contact with German editors, retailers etc.

What is the focus of your bookshop as well as your personal focus as a bookseller? The focus of our bookshop and my personal focus as a bookseller is Academic & Higher Education Bookstore selling Arabic and foreign books all over Egypt and the Arab countries to universities and libraries. What do you expect from the Frankfurt International Booksellers Programme? I expect from the Frankfurt International Booksellers Programme to help me meet international publishers and booksellers from all over the world and also take a look on how major booksellers work and  see their operations , marketing , distribution , ......etc.

What is the focus of your bookshop as well as your personal focus as a bookseller? Our mission is to carefully pick children's and YA books based on their textual and visual qualities. Thousands of books are published every year, and it isn't very easy for readers and their adults to keep track of it. Personal contact with our customers is of utmost importance to us – we love to present to them the carefully-selected titles, discuss the books we offer and know, and meet everyone during the regularly organized book events and storytimes. What do you expect from the Frankfurt International Booksellers Programme? I am thrilled to have a chance to meet booksellers from all around the world and share our experiences of running a magical place which a bookstore truly is. I am excited to learn about the possibilities of expanding our range of foreign language books and welcoming books for children and YA in German in our bookshop.

What is the focus of your bookshop as well as your personal focus as a bookseller? I see Banca Tatuí as a cultural agent that contributes to an exciting movement of Brazilian and Latin independent publishers. We see books as an artform with tremendous potential not yet fully discovered. What do you expect from the Frankfurt International Booksellers Programme? I expect to learn good practices that help to spread literary culture. In the long term, we want to create bridges for exportation and importation of books and independent art in general. And, of course, we want to share every knowledge we acquire with our peers.