Frankfurter Buchmesse Wildcard: The winners are Reisedepeschen Verlag and UNSILO
Record: 457 submissions / Winners: a community publisher with bloggers and a Danish AI platform
Frankfurt, 20 June 2018 – Innovation receives exhibition stand: In early April, for the fourth time, the Frankfurter Buchmesse (10-14 October 2018) launched its Wildcard campaign. Applicants with creative business ideas could compete for the Wildcard to win a free 8-square-metre stand at the fair. For the first time, two Wildcards were awarded: one for a German exhibitor, plus an additional Wildcard for an international applicant. This seems to have inspired significantly more submissions than in previous years. Indeed, 457 business ideas for innovative publishing were presented from a total of 35 countries. As a point of comparison: In the previous three years, the total number of Wildcard submissions was 460. This year’s submissions covered a wide range of content: from a crowdfunded mindfulness guidebook to a VR-stories startup for graphic novels.
The winner of the Wildcard (national) is Reisedepeschen Verlag, a crowdfunded publishing house founded by two travel bloggers. Their “Reisedepeschen” (“travel dispatches”) are elaborate print books designed together with other travel bloggers and designers. “With our travel books, we bring together creative minds from the travel-blog and publishing worlds. The Wildcard gives us an amazing opportunity to make new contacts in the book sector and to bring together all these people from completely different domains”, assert Marianna Hillmer and Johannes Klaus, Managing Publishers at Reisedepeschen.
Website: reisedepeschen.de
The winner of the Wildcard (international) is the AI-based publishing platform UNSILO from Denmark. It optimises publishing processes with the help of algorithms and machine learning. “UNSILO is very grateful to the Frankfurter Buchmesse for awarding us a Wildcard stand. We consider the Frankfurter Buchmesse the most important publishing fair of the year, hands down. And we look forward to presenting a series of strategic solutions that use machine learning for new internal workflows”, explains Michael Upshall, Head of Sales & Business Development at UNSILO.
Website: unsilo.com
“In addition to the fact that we received twice as many submissions this year, I’m also particularly pleased by their diversity. The joy of traveling and exchanges within the community dominate the entire development process at Reisedepeschen Verlag. And UNSILO shows us how the most important digital trend of the moment, artificial intelligence, is also advancing the field of publishing”, says Katja Böhne, Vice President Marketing & Communications at the Frankfurter Buchmesse.
About the Frankfurter Buchmesse
The Frankfurter Buchmesse is the international publishing industry’s biggest trade fair – with over 7,300 exhibitors from 102 countries, around 286,000 visitors, over 4,000 events and some 10,000 accredited journalists and bloggers in attendance. It also brings together key players from other media, including the film and games industries. Since 1976, the Book Fair has featured an annual Guest of Honour country, which showcases its book market, literature and culture to attendees in a variety of ways. The Frankfurter Buchmesse organises the participation of German publishers at around 20 international book fairs and hosts trade events throughout the year in major international markets. With its Business Club, the Frankfurter Buchmesse offers essential services and an ideal setting for the activities of entrepreneurs, publishers, founders, pioneers, experts and visionaries. THE ARTS+ was launched in 2016 as a fair, business festival and international meeting place for the culture and creative industries. It aims to exploit the potential of digitalisation for creative content and to develop new business areas. The Frankfurter Buchmesse is a subsidiary of the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels (German Publishers & Booksellers Association). www.book-fair.com
Contact for the media:
Press & Corporate Communications Frankfurter Buchmesse
Katja Böhne, Vice President Marketing & Communications, tel.: +49 (0) 69 2102-138, press@book-fair.com
Kathrin Grün, Head of PR and Communications, tel.: +49 (0) 69 2102-170, gruen@book-fair.com
Frank Krings, PR Manager, tel.: +49 (0) 69 2102-107, krings@book-fair.com
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