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Germany

At Frankfurt Fair, Imaging A New Life For "Brick And Mortar" Bookstores

Booksellers at last year's book fair.
Booksellers at last year's book fair.

FRANKFURT - Even before the world’s biggest book fair opened this week in Frankfurt, figures from a study conducted by the PwC consulting firm added more worry for printed book dealers about the uncertain future of their trade.

According to the study, released Tuesday, demand for e-books is getting ever-larger in Germany. By 2015, the turnover for fiction alone is estimated at over 350 million euros, or 6.3% of the market. By the end of 2010, only some 20 million euros worth of fictional e-books had been sold. Meanwhile, this year the traditional retail book business is once again showing a drop of just about 5%.

"To me, that is a figure that spells a need for reflection," said Gottfried Honnefelder, president of the German Publishers & Booksellers Association.

Nonetheless, he said he was optimistic about the future of bricks and mortar, as book stores fueled by creative new ideas were opening up all over Germany. "My impression is that the time for independent bookstores has come,” he said.

In his opening speech, book fair director Juergen Boos referred to changes happening in the book industry right now as the most significant since the introduction of the printing press. "New players are coming into the sector every day, creating new product ideas and business models. You could call this development the ‘big bang’ of publishing."

The changes were most readily apparent in media targeting of the children's and young adult markets, he said, which is why -- with 1,500 exhibitors and 340 events -- they were a focal point this year at the Frankfurt festival.

Another major highlight this year, Boos said, is the launch of the "Roadmap to Publishing Trends" (in English here).

There are some 7,300 exhibitors at the Frankfurt Book Fair this year – slightly less than last year (7,384). In 2010, there were 7,539 exhibitors. The fair runs until Sunday, October 14.

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Society

Genoa Postcard: A Tale Of Modern Sailors, Echos Of The Ancient Mariner

Many seafarers are hired and fired every seven months. Some keep up this lifestyle for 40 years while sailing the world. Some of those who'd recently docked in the Italian port city of Genoa, share a taste of their travels that are connected to a long history of a seafaring life.

A sailor smokes a cigarette on the hydrofoil Procida

A sailor on the hydrofoil Procida in Italy

Daniele Frediani/Mondadori Portfolio via ZUMA Press
Paolo Griseri

GENOA — Cristina did it to escape after a tough breakup. Luigi because he dreamed of adventures and the South Seas. Marianna embarked just “before the refrigerator factory where I worked went out of business. I’m one of the few who got severance pay.”

To hear their stories, you have to go to the canteen on Via Albertazzi, in Italy's northern port city of Genoa, across from the ferry terminal. The place has excellent minestrone soup and is decorated with models of the ships that have made the port’s history.

There are 38,000 Italian professional sailors, many of whom work here in Genoa, a historic port of call that today is the country's second largest after Trieste on the east coast. Luciano Rotella of the trade union Italian Federation of Transport Workers says the official number of maritime workers is far lower than the reality, which contains a tangle of different laws, regulations, contracts and ethnicities — not to mention ancient remnants of harsh battles between shipowners and crews.

The result is that today it is not so easy to know how many people sail, nor their nationalities.

What is certain is that every six to seven months, the Italian mariner disembarks the ship and is dismissed: they take severance pay and after waits for the next call. Andrea has been sailing for more than 20 years: “When I started out, to those who told us we were earning good money, I replied that I had a precarious life: every landing was a dismissal.”

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