Is it worth going to?
At the website http://www.tibe.org.tw/en/ there doesn’t seem to be many exhibitors attending, but then again I’ve not been to a book exhibition before so I don’t know what’s considered normal. [Incidentally the TIBE website is quite funny in two places: the FAQ section is empty, and check out the embarrassing [color=red]exhibitibor’s[/color] typo bottom right. ]
Anyway, I have a couple of children’s stories (picture books) I have been sending to overseas publishers without success. Does anyone ‘in the know’ think it would be worth my while bringing along my manuscripts to pitch to agents/publishers there? Or is it not that sort of an affair?
It is probably better to just make contacts at the show and arrange to meet potential publishers later. The show will be crowded and loud.
If this show is like most “international” shows in Taipei, you can get in for free by providing a business card with a foreign address. You just have to convince the people running the registration desk that you are somehow (even if only marginally) associated with the publishing industry.
Funny. I went a couple fo years ago, and it was free and generally open to the public I thought. Or is there another festival? It wasn’t clear from the form. If I preregister as an industry person, do I still have to pay?
TIBE was once an industry show (the biggest in Asia by the way). It gave publishing people from all over the world a chance to meet and to discuss rights acquisitions etc. Now though it’s just publishers marketing directly to the public. Believe it or not, TIBE accounts for approximately 10% of book sales in Taiwan.
===============A friend of mine who works in one of the publishing companies here send me this. I don’t know if it is up to date or even accurate, but she said it might help:
===============The Literature Cafe looks like the best thing happening at it.
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[there will be a three-day workshop on book design, as well as workshops and forums about digital publishing, a “Convergence of Digital Era Summit”, publishing innovations and other issues co-organized by Business Weekly. Many internationally-known illustrators, book designers and publishing experts from Taiwan and overseas will be participating in these public events.
The grand Art of Publishing Exhibition, located in Hall I, will feature five special themes: Art Design Italy - illustration; Art Design Italy - graphic design; the 50 most beautiful books from Germany; selected books from the Golden Butterfly Award; and books from internationally-acclaimed publishing houses that specialize in book art and design.
For fans of comics, Hall II will feature a popular Comics Pavilion dedicated to two great masters of Japanese manga: Tezuka Osamu, creator of Astro Boy, and Fujiko Fujio, the creator of Doraemon.
TIBE will also feature a special Literature Cafe on the second floor of Hall I, with 35 well-known Taiwanese writers giving lectures, signing autographs and answering questions from readers, kind of like Starbucks at the fair. good coffee, snacks, sandwiches a 24/7 beano, I guess.]
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