Editorial

Frankfurt Academy Quarterly

Spring Edition 2014

Three is a Crowd

BUCKS FOR bOOKS

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Securing funding for book projects has been the chief concern of publishers for

FINANCING INNOVATION: HOW BULLISH DOES INVESTMENT fOR PUBLISHING GET?

hundreds of years. With the advent of digitisation there is a growing need to nance a large number of innovations not only for traditional books, but also brand new business models. In FAQ we ask whether publishers are nding new sources of funding to address this need, and we cast a glance at Brazil, China and Europe.

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Three is a Crowd
Brazil, Europe, China: three different places; three different views of how to harness capital.

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Ireland is now home to all the tech giants. What effect is this having on innovation in Irish publishing?

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A chance encounter with the new money in publishing: crowd & corporate investors and venture capital.

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WELCOME!
Securing funding for book projects has been one of the chief concerns of publishers for hundreds of years. For centuries, it was fairly easy to estimate the costs: small sums of money were needed in the short-term, which were often covered using the companys own resources, sometimes with considerable self-sacrice. In these digital times, however, publishing houses want to launch not only traditional book projects, but also whole new business segments and models. The only question is: where do they nd the money to do so? The Frankfurt Academy Quarterly has embarked on a journey through the world of investment to nd out what lies behind alternative forms of nancing, such as crowd investment. Which publishers are relying on corporate venture capital, and how successful has this been? Why do banks and investors tend to see the creative industries as unreliable, despite the fact that they are statistically even more protable than other sectors? And how do investment options differ between the major regions of Brazil, China and Europe? In our Three is a Crowd column we examine three different approaches to investment on a global scale: Brazil, China and the EU. The Brazilian publishing market is strongly inuenced by the state around 40 per cent of the educational market is in the hands of the government. We ask Michael Ross of Encyclopaedia Britannica why his company nevertheless decided to enter the Brazilian market. We then focus on China and ask Chinese-born serial entrepreneur Bowei Gai how the venture capital market there compares to Silicon Valley. Thirdly, as the European Union aims to build a single digital market for its 28 member states, a European public space without borders is also high on the publishers agenda but it will still take a lot of innovation to make it a reality. We ask two insiders how the EU is prepared to support publishers in this, and we discuss with them how it will be possible to improve access to nance for European creative companies, which face a nancing gap of over 13 billion euros by 2020. The US social media and technology giants, such as Facebook, Twitter and Google, all have bases in Ireland. Are there any spill-over effects of this on innovation in the Irish publishing scene? Irish publishing expert Eoin Purcell tells us more in Trending Topics.

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Holger Volland, Ch. Schmidt

Holger Volland is VP Media Industries at the Frankfurt Book Fair, and head of the Frankfurt Academy

Our Serendipity column is based on chance encounters which very often prove to be the most fruitful. In this issue we learn about alternative forms of nancing, such as crowd investment, and we meet successful corporate venture experts like Troy Williams of MacMillan Ventures. Enjoy your read!

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Holger Volland Vice President, Media Industries

faq@book-fair.com P.S. Investment will also be high on the agenda at our upcoming conferences, StoryDrive Asia and GlobaLocal. If you know some exciting start-ups that deserve investment, please share the information using our publicly accessible list: Best of Publishing Start-Ups! You can subscribe to the Frankfurt Academy Quarterly by mailing us at faq@book-fair.com or by following this link. BLOG

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CALENDAR Of EVENTS AT THE fRANKfURT ACADEMY

When
18 February

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Where
Sesc Vila Mariana, So Paulo, Brazil Canoas/Rio Grande del Sul

What

Whom to contact
Marif Boix-Garcia boix@book-fair.com

CONTEC BRASIL
A conference series which will take place in various locations around the country, with a focus on education (interactive learning and innovative teaching methods). Speakers include Udi Chatow of Hewlett-Packard, Octavio Kulesz (Teseo), David Sanchez (24 Symbols) and many more.

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20 February

9-15 February

Delhi & Chennai, India

EXCLUSIVE INDIA
Study trip on Indias innovative publishing scene.

Prashasti Rastogi German Book Office (GBO) New Delhi rastogi@newdelhi.gbo.org

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13-14 February

New Delhi, India

GLOBALOCAL THE FORUM FOR CONTENT

With national and international publishers and a programme devoted to new trends in trade publishing, STM, marketing, rights & licences, start-ups and investment; speakers include Urvashi Butalia and Michael Healy of the Copyright Clearance Center, Lynette Owen and Winnie Hung of HP, and many more.

Katharina Ewald ewald@book-fair.com Prashasti Rastogi German Book Office (GBO) New Delhi rastogi@newdelhi.gbo.org

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Exhibition: 28 May 1June Conference: 29 - 30 May

Beijing, China

STORYDRIVE ASIA
StoryDrive Asia is the rst all-media platform in Asia dedicated to exploring new forms of collaboration and business models across media boundaries. Leading minds from all over the world will illuminate the future of media and entertainment.

Britta Friedrich friedrich@book-fair.com Yingxin Gong Director German Book Office (GBO) gong@biz-beijing.org

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Publishers Thrive with HP Publishing Solutions

Visit us at hp.com/go/smarterpublishing

THREE IS A CROWD
In this issue, we look at three different approaches to investment on a global scale: in Brazil, China and the European Union. Forty per cent of the Brazilian educational market is in the hands of the state; we ask Michael Ross of Encyclopaedia Britannica why his company still decided to venture into Brazil. Then we look at how start-ups pay their way in China, compared with Silicon Valley. And, as the EU targets a single digital market for its 28 member states, Europes publishers also aspire to a common public space. What support is available for this from the EU itself, and how can creative companies in Europe overcome an expected nancing gap of more than 13billion euros by 2020?

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WHY ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA VENTURED INTO BRAZIL DESPITE THE RECENT ECONOMIC SLOWDOWN

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By Siobhan OLeary The Brazilian government could well be the biggest book buyer in the world. It is certainly the primary customer for books published domestically and this is an upward trend as the emerging nation makes a concerted effort to strengthen its economy and improve the quality of life of its nearly 200 million citizens. In 2012, book sales in Brazil achieved a turnover of about 1.85 billion US-dollars, almost a third of which can be traced to government purchases of educational materials. To encourage a shift from brain drain to brain gain, Brazil is making serious investments in all aspects of education, from content to infrastructure

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Brazils biggest potential: a young generation, hungry for education

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Michael Ross is the Senior Vice President and General Manager of Britannica Digital Learning. He is responsible for all sales and marketing activities in North America and EMEA and works closely with Britannicas product development teams to identify and act on new opportunities for high-quality educational products. He was previously executive vice president and publisher with World Book Inc., and also held positions at NTC Publishing Group (now McGraw-Hill), McDougal Littell (a division of Houghton Mifin), and Time-Life Books. Michael lives with his family in Chicago. He will be a keynote speaker at the upcoming conference series, CONTEC Brasil.

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and everything in-between. Late last year, Brazils lower house of Congress approved a new education plan that should increase public spending on education to 10% of GDP by 2020, making it proportionally the biggest national education budget in the world. All this investment seems to be having an impact. According to a 2011 study on higher education published by the Brazilian Ministry of Education (Ministrio Educao, MEC), the number of students in Brazilian universities and colleges has risen by 110% over the last ten years, from 3 to 6.5 million. It goes without saying that this is an environment ripe for foreign investment and involvement. Education is an especially promising eld. Foreign publishers like Wiley, Thomas Nelson and Spains SM already began to invest in Brazil a long time ago and they continue to do so, despite the recent economic slowdown. One company that has increased its footprint in the Brazilian market over the past few years is Encyclopaedia Britannica. According to Michael Ross, the companys Senior Vice President and General Manager of Education, Britannica views Brazil as strategically very important, as it is for any company operating in the Latin American region. We recognise that investment in the Brazilian market is essential for our long-term presence in the region, he says. Brazil is a large and sophisticated country that places an extremely high value on educational advancement.

Although Britannica had been present in Brazil in print and on DVDs for a long time, the company which shifted exclusively to digital in 2012 formed a partnership in late 2009 through its distribution partner DotLib to create a supplementary teaching solution. The partnership was part of an effort launched in 2008 by Coordenao de Aperfeioamento de Pessoal de Nivel Superior (CAPES), a division of Brazils Ministry of Education tasked by the federal government with boosting the professional development of elementary and middle school teachers in Brazil. CAPES was looking to nd (and fund) tools and resources to help increase teachers knowledge and improve teaching techniques. According to Michael, Britannicas agship digital learning portal, Britannica Online School Edition, was chosen as the model for the new product.

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We are collaborating with several key players in Brazil... to help ensure Brazilian students receive safe, accurate and useful information during their formative years.

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The new resource: Britannica Escola Online

In order to produce a product that would truly meet the needs of Brazils students, Britannica turned to local consultants and content experts, as well as CAPES, to gain a better understanding of Brazils elementary schools. The result was a new reference resource for kindergarten and primary school classes, called Britannica Escola Online. Despite the states massive involvement in Brazils educational ecosystem, it usually takes a relatively hands-off approach in terms of actually adapting content for the local market. But in the case of Britannica Escola, explains Michael Ross, it was a mutual cooperation to bring the best digital content to all students. regardless of their nancial situation. More than 25 million students now have access to the product, which is presented entirely in Portuguese and embraces many of the features that are available in the English-language school edition, such as ageappropriate encyclopaedic articles, a Learning Zone for pre-kindergarten students, a workspace, interactive games and multimedia resources. The product is free to all public schools, though private schools pay a subscription fee for access. In addition to Britannicas own editorial resources, it contains new editorial and learning materials (including videos)

that, according to Michael, correlate with the Brazilian curriculum. The pitfalls of the Brazilian market: taxes, tariffs, infrastructure Despite the obvious advantages, entering the Brazilian market even with government backing is not without its challenges. For one thing, there is currently no centralised distribution system for digital educational content. Taxes and tariffs are very high, especially for foreign companies, which have no choice but to work with local distributors in order to overcome legal and commercial barriers. Then there is the matter of ensuring students can actually obtain the high-quality content there are still signicant access issues in Brazil that need to be addressed. Although we are not directly involved in infrastructure building in Brazil, Michael says, we are collaborating with several key players in Brazil that provide hardware in order to help ensure that Brazilian students receive safe, accurate and useful information during their formative years. But infrastructure and the students needs vary tremendously from region to region. Creating content that caters to all students in Brazil is only a rst step. Each

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state and region must address the issue of technology in education in a different way, says Michael, adding that the current state of Brazils educational system makes it difficult for access to digital content to be equal across the board at this point in time. But this is still the ultimate goal. Whatever one does, he explains, and whatever stage they are in at the moment, we need to consider the way in which hardware, software, and teacher training are implemented and address all three with equal passion.

Meet MICHAel ROSS

You can meet Michael at the con ference series CONTEC Brasil, where he will deliver a keynote speech on the latest education trends. Or contact him directly: mross@eb.com

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CONTEC BRASIL
In 2014, the Frankfurt Book Fair is expanding its activities in Brazil with the CONTEC Brasil conference series hosted in various locations around the country. The rst conference will be on 18 February in Sesc Vila Mariana, So Paulo, and another will take place in Canoas/Rio Grande del Sul on 20 February, in cooperation with the education ministry of Rio Grande do Sul. Other CONTEC Brasil events will be organised in major Brazilian cities throughout the year. Partners of CONTEC include Hewlett-Packard (HP), Editora Saraiva and Edies SM.

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Inviting: the venues for the new CONTEC Brasil conference series in Sesc Vila Mariana, So Paulo and Canoas/Rio Grande del Sul

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2 SAVAGE HEART HOW TO INVEST IN CHINA

China made the news recently when it surpassed the USA as the worlds biggest trading nation. Foreign investment is also at an all-time high, with a record 17.6 billion US-dollars in foreign direct investment in 2013. Money abounds. China is the biggest venture capital market outside the USA, with a vibrant and competitive start-up scene but it can be very bloody. Bowei Gai, a Chineseborn serial entrepreneur from Silicon Valley, shares his insights with us. In 2013 he spent nine months travelling the globe to compile his World Startup Report.

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By Alva Gehrmann Bowei Gai is sitting in the kitchen of his new apartment. For a short while now, he has been living in the city of Cebu in the Philippines. A little peace and quiet has returned to his life. During 2013 he spent nine months travelling the world in order to meet start-ups from the technology sector. His World Startup Report took him to 36 cities in 29 countries. In India, for instance, Gai encountered a highly successful telephone search engine that goes by the name of JustDial. In Kenya he witnessed the future of mobile payment: M-Pesa is a micronancing and money transfer service that is easily accessible to all mobile phone users. Money equalling 30% of Kenyas GDP now ows through M-Pesa, says Bowie Gai in a Skype interview. The 29-year-old will pull together the results of his tour over the next six months from his base in the Philippines. With my report I want to create a community guidebook that details every start-up ecosystem in the world, says the author. His goal is to provide useable information for businesspeople, decision makers and investors around the world. After all, even in a globalised economy there are regional differences,

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Bowei Gai is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and the driving force behind the World Startup Report. He was also the founder of Cardmunch and Snapture Labs. In 2011, his report on China became a viral hit on the internet. In this FAQ interview, Bowei looks back to 2011 and sheds light on the rapid changes that have occurred since. Bowei Gai

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from corporate culture to infrastructure and ways of building businesses. As early as 2011, the Chinese-born expert published a start-up report on China, with its 1.3 billion people. Bowei lived here until he was 12, when his family moved to the USA. After his studies he worked as an engineer for Apple, before founding the startups Snapture Labs and CardMunch, which were bought by LinkedIn. The young entrepreneur was at home in Silicon Valley, but he decided to use the experience he gained there in order to explore the start-up scene in his former homeland. If China can transform itself from an impoverished country to a world superpower in 20 years, imagine where they will be in 50 years, he wrote in his 2011 China Startup Report. Given that such radical change is happening so fast, has the industry also changed in the last three years? Absolutely. The scene has changed completely. Back then the company TaoBao, a kind of eBay, was very small. Today its a

multimillion US-dollar business. TaoBao was bought by Alibaba which, in turn, is the worlds largest online business-to-business exchange platform for small companies. This e-commerce service sells everything, from fridges and shavers to ights and books. In 2012, two of Alibabas portals together handled 1.1 trillion yuan in sales thats 170 billion US-dollars, says Bowei. That is more than their competitors eBay and Amazon.com put together. On 11 November 2013, TaoBao and Tmall made 5.7 billion US-dollars in sales. To put it in perspective, thats roughly three times the amount that all US e-commerce companies made on Cyber Monday, says Bowei. Today even Boweis grandfather books ights through this portal. When doing his research, Bowei Gai discovered that Chinas venture capital market is the largest in the world after the USA. According to Dow Jones, in 2011 Chinese venture capitalists invested13 billion US-dollars across all deals, compared with the

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Boweis travels: cities visited The Economist

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Here, much more than in the USA and Europe, investments are based on relationships.

26.5 billion US-dollars invested by the USA. The technology sector is booming, and there is a lot happening in the publishing sector, too. So is it worth making a foray into China, even as a foreigner? If you want to invest or start a business in the Chinese market, I have only one suggestion: go to China! says the start-up specialist. That allows you to see and feel what this country is all about. You cannot operate a China-focused business from

the outside there hasnt been a single foreign company in the world that has succeeded that way. A good example of a company that heeded this advice early would be Bertelsmann, which was one of the rst western media companies to engage in and with China. Recently, Bertelsmann Asia Investments announced the protable sale of two of its investments, BitAuto and Yoho. The companys press release claimed that, were Bertelsmann to sell all six holdings it invested in during the early stage of the fund, it would generate around 175 million US-dollars in proceeds. Given an investment volume of 55 million US-dollars up until 2010, this would correspond to a tripling of the capital invested. Yet understanding this enormous market and the countrys culture requires time and diligence. The government gives very little support to new companies, says Bowei. No tax incentives, special

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At a glance What types of investors should look at the Chinese market?

Angel investor a wealthy person who provides capital for a business start-up, usually in exchange for convertible debt or ownership equity. He or she typically invests at an early stage, before the business is a proven success. It is a high risk, high reward type of investment. Bowei Gai: Foreign angel investors are going to have a hard time in China. Understanding the Chinese market takes signicant time and effort. It is very important for the investor to spend a lot of time on the ground, which is typically hard at an angel level. Without a deep comprehension of China, it is very easy for investors to lose their money due to fraud. I do not recommend that casual investors invest in China. Venture capital involves the investment of larger sums. It provides financial capital to early-stage startup companies. Bowei Gai: It is probably the most attractive option for foreign investors, because theres enough money at stake to make it worthwhile for the investor to send someone to China to assess the country context thoroughly. Crowdfunding collective attempts by individuals who network and pool their money through the internet to support others initiatives or projects. Bowei Gai: Crowdfunding is not suitable for foreign individuals because China uses a different internet from rest of the world. There would be zero value for a foreigner in crowdfunding a Chinese internet start-up because these are made for the Chinese market, and they provide value only to their customers. If a Chinese company is building a product for the world market, then it would use crowdfunding through global websites like KickStarter or Indiegogo. And it would portray itself as a global company, not a Chinese rm. Crowdfunding might work, but it will only matter to the local Chinese people. Seed money/incubators programmes designed to support the development of companies through different resources and services. They also provide a network of contacts.

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Bowei Gai: Foreign incubators are not likely to succeed in China. An incubators value is in its operating experience and extensive network that can help start-ups. Foreign incubators are not going to be able to help any Chinese start-ups building products for their home market. Even the famous Samwer brothers (Rocket Internet) failed in China, so there is very little reason to believe German incubators can make a big impact there.

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economic zones, nor even support programmes or legislation play a signicant role there is no specic settlement policy for new rms and startups. They dont need new companies. There are enough in the market already, says Bowei. Here, much more than in the USA and Europe, investments are based on relationships. This means it pays to be careful. Investors should check whether a promising company is really what it seems, and start-ups need to ascertain if an investor is trustworthy. As things stand, there is scepticism on both sides. Bowei would discourage those who are thinking of acting as foreign angel investors, contributing just a little money without any further involvement.

To survive in the Chinese market requires a different mindset, says Bowei. You cannot ght counterfeiting in China, you have to work with it. Since the market is large enough, start-ups are willing to put up with it because even one per cent of the market can make you rich. As a side benet, the heavy competition forces the Chinese companies to be extremely creative in nding ways to monetise. In the publishing business alone, you can nd new and interesting business models that put a twist on freemium-, donation- and lottery-based business models. Its fascinating. Its likely that China is outinnovating the USA at this point, because it is subject to such harsh and cut-throat competition. When Bowei Gai was born, there were still people dying of poverty in his home country. The nation was raised to value hard work. Savage heart, he explains, is a term used to describe the attitude that shapes the market to this day. The Chinese are not afraid to fail. In a nutshell, the conclusion of Boweis research is that everything is more extreme in China. Investment risk is greater, but the prot can be greater too. Originally I did the China Startup Report because I wanted to see if I can go back, said Bowei. But once I had nished the report, I changed my mind. He nds market practices in his homeland simply too hard. His Silicon Valley contemporary, Hugo Barra, on the other hand, gave up his job at Google to go to China. However, he did not found his own business, but is working instead for a Chinese company. Who knows where Bowei will end up once he has completed his World Startup Report?

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To survive in the Chinese market requires a different mindset... You cannot fight counterfeiting in China, you have to work with it.

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It is a different story for venture capital, as venture capitalists are often willing to invest more time and money to back start-ups. As Bowei says, this is probably the sweet spot for foreign investors, because theres enough money at stake that the company will send someone to China to research the country from the ground up. Added to this is the fact that China is currently home to almost 600 million internet users, yet hardly any of the most successful internet services come from abroad. There is a copy of every online service in the world in China. RenRen, for instance, is Chinas answer to Facebook, while WeiBo is similar to Twitter. Of the top 20 most used websites in the world, almost half serve only the Chinese market. They include the previously mentioned companies such as TaoBao, as well as Baidu. This vast market is characterised primarily by its limitless competition. According to Bowei, in the USA there are a handful of competitors for any good business idea, but in China there are many more. It is estimated that there are now 6,000 clones of Groupon, the successful deal-of-the-day website launched in the USA.

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Meet BOweI GAI

You can meet Bowei at the Frankfurt Book Fair (812 October 2014), where he plans to present his rst book, or follow him on Twitter @BoweiGai.

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LOOKING fOR A CHANCE TO DEEPEN YOUR KNOWLEDGE ABOUT INVESTMENT IN ASIA?

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STORYDRIVE ASIA: (RE)SHAPE YOUR STORY (BEIJING, CHINA)

StoryDrive Asia is the all-media platform in Asia, dedicated to exploring new forms of collaboration and business models across media boundaries. In 2012 and 2013, the Frankfurt Book Fair and its office in China, the German Book Information Centre Beijing, successfully organised StoryDrive China at Beijing CIFTIS Fair. For 2014, the conference has been expanded and renamed as StoryDrive Asia. Leading minds from around the world, and especially the major Asian markets, will illuminate the future of media and entertainment. They will share their knowledge and provide you with

the tools you need to make the most of your business and to discover successful crossmedia and transmedia approaches.

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StoryDrive Asia is part of the China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS). CIFTIS is a comprehensive, international platform for the trade in services, hosted by the Ministry of Commerce of the Peoples Republic of China and organised by the Peoples Government of Beijing Municipality.

When: 28 May 1 June (exhibition); 29 30 May (conference) Where: Beijing, Auditorium, 3rd Floor, China National Convention Centre (Beijing) Contact : ...for programme inquiries and proposals: ...for all other inquiries:

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Britta Friedrich Director of Events and Programmes friedrich@book-fair.com

Yingxin Gong, Director German Book Office Beijing gong@biz-beijing.org

GLOBALOCAL: THE FORUM FOR CONTENT

Globalocal: The Forum for Content was started by the Frankfurt Book Fairs New Delhi office in 2009. It is tailored to the needs of publishing and its allied industries. It has evolved from a conference format to become an exclusive B2B platform that includes expert speakers and networking opportunities, as well as other forms of business outreach. This years programme is devoted to new trends in trade publishing, STM, marketing, rights & licences, start-ups and investment. It involves international speakers, such as Urvashi Butalia, Michael Healy (Copyright Clearance Center), Lynette Owen, Winnie Hung (HewlettPackard) and many more. There will be a special focus on investment. Venture capitalists have shown keen interest in the potential investment market in India for When: 13 14 February 2014 Where: New Delhi, India

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a long time, providing large sums of money to companies with proven growth potential, says the keynote speaker Dr Brijesh Kumar, founder of Digital Media Initiatives. However, entrepreneurs in the start-up phase have not enjoyed many nancing options. Investments in publishing start-ups such as Digital Media Initiatives (an e-publishing technology provider) have largely been funded from personal sources. We look forward to reaping greater rewards from more mature investors and from angel relationships in this vibrant, potentially scalable marketplace with a robust economy and growing client base.

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Contact:

Prashasti Rastogi Director German Book Office New Delhi +91 (11) 40201100 rastogi@newdelhi.gbo.org

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3 ACCESS TO FINANCE: HOW CAN EUROPES CREATIVE PROfESSIONALS RAISE 13BILLION EUROS?
The EU wants to establish a single digital market for its 28 member states. A European public space without borders is also high on the agenda of publishers but a lot of innovation is still needed to make this a reality. We ask two EU insiders, Maciej Szymanowicz of the EU Commission and Thierry Baujard of the consulting company peacefulsh, how the EU is supporting publishers in this, and how access to nance can be improved for European creative companies, which face a nancing gap of over 13 billion euros between now and 2020.

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By Nina Klein Much-needed innovation within the creative industries will cost a lot, yet over the next seven years the existing financing models will leave a shortfall of more than 13 billion euros. This situation was revealed in a recent study entitled Access to Finance, carried out on behalf of the European Commission. The requirement for innovation is particularly marked in publishing, with its 550-year-old business model. A single digital market for Europe has long seemed a tempting way forward, but this can only be developed with considerable investment.

Why the present sources of capital are no longer sufficient Public subsidies have never been an important source of capital for funding new book publishing projects, and EU funds are no exception. Of course, small, niche publishers exist, such as the German firm Stroemfeld Verlag, which are able to develop their lists thanks to funding from foundations, as well as credit gained through traditional crowd funding i.e. from private supporters. Other publishers are becoming increasingly experimental in their methods, as is the case with BasteiLbbe

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Access to Finance, a study carried for the European Commission, shows that innovation in the creative industries will be expensive, and that existing nancing models will leave a nancing gap of more than 13 billion euros over the next seven years.

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Commission has just established that a financing gap of around 13 billion euros is set to open up across Europes whole creative sector. The amount of money invested annually in Europe as venture capital is small by comparison with the USA. It has been falling ever since the beginning of the financial crisis in 2008, as shown by the latest report from the European Venture Capital Association: The overall amount of 36.5 billion euros invested in European companies in 2012 represented a decline of 19% compared to the previous year. This was due to a weak first half of 2012 coinciding with economic uncertainty in Europe. (...) The total amount of venture capital invested declined year on year by 14% to 3.2 billion euros. Meanwhile, bank loans are becoming increasingly difficult to obtain for creative businesses, mainly due to the financial crisis. Maciej Szymanowicz of the EU Commission talks of impending market failure: For a number of companies in the cultural and creative sectors the access to simple bank loans is far too difficult. The recent study, Access to Finance, was based on a pan-European survey of more than 3,000 experts from the creative industries and the financial world. It highlights a mismatch of supply and demand in the loans market, which means cultural and creative businesses are missing out on billions of euros in credit. The creative industries: better than the bankers think Although the creative sector accounts for approximately 4.5% of the gross national product of the EU (which makes it bigger than the automotive industry), investors still seem afflicted with a great uncertainty about how to deal with creative people. As Maciej explains, Only with digitisation

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and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, which attempted an initial public offering in order to raise the funds they need. Nevertheless, in the publishing sector the greatest demand is still for small, short-term loans. Publishers see these as the best way of retaining control over their editorial programmes. With the increasing pressure to innovate as publishers have to develop digital strategies in tandem with their traditional business, the situation could change. It is already clear that they are looking for new and larger, long- and shortterm sources of capital, whether through crowd investment, venture capital or even bank loans and subsidies. But a recent study by the European Maciej Szymanowicz works in the Creative Europe - MEDIA Unit of the European Commissions Directorate General Education and Culture. This unit is responsible for the EUs activities in support of the European audiovisual sector, and it operates the Cultural and Creative Sectors Guarantee Facility, which aims to help SMEs access private nance.

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Investments in Europe by sector focus source: European Private Equity and Venture Capital Association, Creating Lasting Value, p. 52, EVCA / PEREP_Analytics did the borders between the creative sectors merge, and the term creative industries has only been in broad use for three or four years. Thats why banks and other financial institutions dont know much about this sector; they have a hard time judging the value of the intangible assets that the creative industries possess. And the creative industries, in turn, dont yet know how to present themselves, how to make themselves known to the financial institutions. For this reason, investments in the creative sector are often seen by financiers as highly risky even though experience has shown this isnt usually the case, and the repayment rate in this sphere can possibly be even higher than in others.

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Is it worth taking a lead from film? Films are heavily subsidised in Europe. Unlike their Hollywood counterparts, the majority of European films are made using public funding, which can account for as much as 70 per cent of their total budgets. In the last ten years, however, particularly in the wake of the financial crisis, public funding has seen a sharp decline, says Thierry. In Europe, only Germany and France now provide any substantial support for film. He and his company have therefore specialised in bringing public funding bodies, private and institutional investors and the creative industries together to try out alternative forms of financing. The trick is to foster mutual understanding, says Thierry. Its all about making things comprehensible. How does film production work? Private investors and banks often find it difficult to grasp the need for short-term gap

Thierry Baujard is founder and CEO of peacefulsh (a nancing consultancy for the creative industries), and chairman of a European media investment network called Media Deals. He worked in France and Germany in the eld of business development for Vivendi and ARTE. He then completed an MBA at Bocconi University in Milan and at UCLA in Los Angeles, where he specialised in lm nancing and e-commerce. He later worked on lm projects in the US with Mandalay Entertainment before becoming head of strategic development at Studio Babelsberg in Potsdam.

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Average protability ratios for all creative industries per country, 2010 (in %) Source: Access to Finance for CCS, 2013, p. 68, Ideaconsult

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financing (see info box, p. 18). Producers often juggle budgets that can run into the millions, and with gap financing that is secured against their

It is important to reach the critical mass in order to capture the interest of banks and investors: we need portfolios for the creative industries and fund managers for publishing.
Thierry Baujard

personal assets. At the same time, many banks are unwilling to extend credit in the first place, as they are loath to take on any risk whatsoever. Venture capitalists, on the other hand, have higher margins and are therefore prepared to take risks. Their main focus has long been the ICT sector. According to Thierry, they... need to be made aware that it is actually the content that is exciting, and that it is therefore worth investing in such content. By the same token, it is difficult for those working in the creative industries to

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Mini-Europe park, Brussels Is the single digital market just a stones throw away?

Jay Lee

understand that lenders are not remotely interested in the story, but only in the figures. It often takes hours for Thierry to find out what kind of money creative companies want and need. GAP FINANCING IN THE FILM INDUSTRY Public film financing Regional funding Commercial income before release (pre-sales to TV, distributors, licensing, etc.) = Need for gap financing 25% 25%

Meet MACIej SZymAnOwICZ

Maciej was a speaker at last years CONTEC conference. You can meet him at the Frankfurt Book Fair (8 12 October 2014) or contact him directly: European Commission DG Education and Culture MEDIA Programme tel.: +32 2 29 60024 e-mail: Maciej.SZYMANOWICZ@ ec.europa.eu website: http://ec.europa.eu/media

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30% 20%

Meet THIeRRy BAUjARd

Thierrys consulting rm, peacefulsh, was an early contributor to the storytelling and storyselling conference, StoryDrive. You can meet him at the Frankfurt Book Fair (8 12 October 2014) or get in touch directly: tel: +49 30 488 28 85 61 email: thierry@peacefulsh.com @_peacefulsh

The solution: bring the creative industries and investors together! To start addressing the financing gap, the EU is introducing financial instruments that will run from 2014 to 2020, with a number of different programmes with names such as COSME, Structural Funds, Erasmus+, Creative Europe and Horizon2020. The financial instruments have one aim: to make access to finance easier, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), says Maciej Szymanowicz of the EU commission. The Creative Europe guarantee facility will focus on providing guarantees to banks dealing with cultural and creative SMEs, resulting in easier access to bank

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credit. We will also offer capacity building for financial institutions, so they have a better understanding of the profile of the sector and opportunities it may offer. Europe needs a creative middle class! The consultant Thierry Baujard has his eye on private and institutional investors, rather than the banking industry. This is because banks want a 100 per cent guarantee, and that is almost impossible for the creative industries, which do not have any tangible assets to show, he says. It is important to reach the critical mass in order to capture the interest of banks and investors: we need portfolios for the creative industries and fund managers for publishing. Aspects such as diversification and global distribution are also important for investors. In the medium and long term the goal should be to form a creative middle class in Europe, as there is in the USA: The US ecosystem for start-ups and

venture capital works. As soon as a new round of funding is imminent, the best case is that the startup is sold, thus generating an immediate profit for the venture capitalist. This is called an exit strategy. In Europe, however, there is no creative middle class, only a few giants and lots of tiny companies. This disrupts the creative ecosystem. Only in rare cases do the small European start-ups become solvent big players that in turn invest in startups. And thats a shame, says Thierry, because experience has shown the best investors are former start-ups that invest out of passion, not just out of an interest in turning a profit. This is just as true of publishing as it is of the film industry.

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LOOKING fOR INTERESTED TO A fIND CHANCE OUTTO MORE DEEPEN ABOUT YOUR INVESTMENT, KNOWLEDGE PUBLISHING ABOUT INVESTMENT AND THE EU? IN ASIA?
Get in touch with the TISP network: Technologies and Innovation for Smart Publishing

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The TISP network is a European project, funded by the European Commission. It promotes interactions between European publishing and technology (ICT) companies, with the aim of stimulating new partnerships and business models, while also encouraging policy innovation at national and European levels. The project is managed jointly by Digital Europe (DE) and the Federation of European Publishers (FEP) the European umbrella organisations for ICT and publishing, respectively and will run from 2013 to 2015. TISP is coordinated by the Italian Publishers Association (AIE). It consists of 25 members from 12 countries (Belgium, Bulgaria, Contact:

Germany, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, United Kingdom). The Frankfurt Book Fair is one of those members. The TISP network supplies information on EU funding options for those involved in publishing and ICT, and it supports networking activities.

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Nina Klein Director Corporate Content, Associate Partner, Frankfurt Book Fair klein@book-fair.com

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MAKING COPYRIGHT WORK
In todays digital world, copyright is more important than ever. It is about upholding the value of your content and promoting art, science and education. But copyright is misunderstood. Copyright Clearance Center can help.

Global content and licensing solutions that make copyright work for everyone

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TRENDING TOPICS
The big players of social media and technology from the USA (Facebook, Twitter, Google and others) all have European offices in Ireland. Are there any spill-over effects in terms of innovation for the Irish publishing scene? Irish publishing expert Eoin Purcell tells us more, in Trending Topics.

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The Dublin Web Summit has changed from a small get-together for start-ups to a massive event with over 10,000 attendees not least because of Irelands good connections to Silicon Valley. William Murphy

SILICON DOCKS: ARE IRISH PUBLISHERS BENEfITING fROM THE TECH BOOM?
By Eoin Purcell The Summit, as the organisers of the Dublin Web Summit would rather you called the event these days, is only five years old but already it has established itself as one of the leading tech conferences in Europe, if not the world. This year, its closing session began with Elon Musk driving the Taoiseach (Irelands prime minister) up to the main stage in a flashy Tesla sports car, where they sat on a couch in front of thousands of people for a chat. Some might dismiss the Web Summit as a relic of the Celtic Tiger years that simply forgot to disappear with the crazy property prices and huge budget surpluses. But the event actually began in 2009, after the crash. When you look more closely at the broader web and tech industry in Ireland, it is clear there is something very substantial going on. Less than two kilometres from where the Web Summit is held each year is Dublins Grand Canal Dock, originally built at a time when the canals were the fastest form of transportation for goods around Ireland. This is where both Google and Facebook have established their European headquarters. Not too far away youll find Twitter, Zynga, LinkedIn and Paypal, with Dropbox and others soon to follow all lured by the IDA, Irelands Industrial Development Agency. Amazon has long had a presence in the city, while the e-book retailer Kobo also has an

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Eoin Purcell is editorial director at New Island Books He has previously worked as commissioning editor at New Island Books, commissioning editor with Mercier Press, and as publishing manager at Nonsuch Ireland (now The History Press Ireland). He has spoken at TOC Frankfurt, Digital Book World in New York and a number of other conferences on the future of publishing and the book in the digital age. He writes a monthly column for The Irish Times and since 2006 he has kept a blog on publishing and digital change. He lives and works in Dublin, Ireland.

in Dublin and Ireland (some 83 operating in Ireland at the end of 2012). The web forms a core part of their businesses in a way that is not yet true of traditional publishers. While they are growing their e-book segments, the latter still do most of their business in paper and print. This crucial difference might be the reason why traditional publishing has not felt much direct impact from the tech firms. Most traditional publishers have little interaction with them and, while the newer and smaller innovative publishers might use their platforms, services and tools, there is not much they can give the tech giants and not much the tech giants can give them.

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office and a deal now too, with Irelands largest bookseller, Eason. Some 250km from Dublin, Apple has a facility in Cork, a city where Amazon also has a service centre that, along with other operations, deals with Kindle customer queries. Why have all these companies decided to run such operations out of Ireland? The most obvious answer is the low tax rate of just 12.5%. Then there is the ease of doing business: Forbes magazine recently rated Ireland at the top of its Best Countries for Business list. As part of the Eurozone, its young, English-speaking and educated workforce (though many companies also hire staff from abroad) is likely to attract companies to do business in Ireland. And then there is Enterprise Ireland, a governmentsponsored organisation with the largest venture fund in Europe. To some extent, the presence of the large tech companies has prompted growing media interest in the sector, helping to foster a space where domestic start-ups can flourish. It has created a wider pool of talent, some of which is now beginning to filter back to the start-up scene, says Gareth Cuddy of the Cork-based start-up ePubDirect, which works with publishers to distribute digital books to retailers and libraries. ePubDirect is a good example of the kind of startup that has been successful in Ireland, one based on platforms and distribution rather than just content. Others are more content driven, such as StoryToys, a publisher of childrens interactive books and games, as well as the huge number of online and digital gaming companies that have emerged

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[The presence of the large tech companies] has created a wider pool of talent, some of which is now beginning to filter back to the start-up scene.
Gareth Cuddy

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I dont see that the presence of the large new media and tech companies has had any particular impact on the domestic publishing industry, says Ivan OBrien from The OBrien Press. They dont really interact with us, and they inhabit a multinational space, generally dealing with companies with a whole lot more money than we have! There is, though, a much more subtle impact from such large players moving to Ireland. Their ability to influence the policy agenda is considerably greater than that of the domestic companies and even domestic industries. We have seen an example of this in the last few months, with the delivery of a recommendations by the Irish Copyright Review Committee to the Irish government. The report was viewed in many quarters as favourable to the larger tech firms. [I]t was quite clear from the start of the

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Screenshot of the website epubdirect.com

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process and the framing of the questions that the interests to be served were those of the new (large) technology industries. Interestingly, however, much of the outcome would be as damaging to small digital start-up companies in the creative sector as it would be to the traditional rightsholder community. The outcome definitely benefits Google/Facebook/YouTube but not smaller innovative companies, says Samantha Holman, Chief Executive of the Irish Copyright Licensing Agency. The report endorses the full range of exceptions permitted by current EU law, including formatshifting, parody, education, disability, and heritage, as well as related exceptions for non-commercial user-generated content and content mining. On face value, such rights enable all private users to legally link and share content without fear. However, they obviously also favour the free exploitation of content by larger tech firms on an industrial scale, without rewarding the copyright holders. Its clear that the tech rms arrival in Ireland has had mixed benets, but will Ireland be able to keep them and attract more? Moves to harmonise VAT on e-books

would probably not have any real impact on the technology companies. Levelling the VAT playing eld might, in some ways, simply open more markets to exploitation directly from Ireland. The low corporate tax rate has attracted much negative comment in Europe and the United States, but for now it seems to be secure. The risks, then, are more medium to long-term. For instance, if they ever came to pass, the impact of proposals like the Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base could be dramatic, reducing the tax advantage enjoyed by technology rms based in Ireland. For the moment, companies are free to choose how they manage their own tax affairs, but the rhetoric of European lawmakers suggests future developments in this area will not be favourable to Irish interests, even if Ireland retains the power to set its own rate. In the longer term, there is also a stronger likelihood that other European states will make changes to their industrial policies to attract the technology giants to their shores. Unlike a chip manufacturer such as Intel, which invests heavily in machinery and plant, Facebook and its peers are often much lighter on their feet. All they need to operate are office space

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Where once was an industrial landscape, today you can nd Google and Facebook: this is Silicon Docks on Dublins Grand Canal. hugovk

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and willing and skilled workers. They are less tied to their establishments. Nevertheless, it is worth noting Googles recent purchase of the Montevetro office building for just shy of 100 million, and another building close to its current Barrow Street location for 65 million a not insignicant investment. On the whole, such fears seem misplaced right now, at a time when the attractiveness of Silicon Docks as Grand Canal Dock has become known is growing rather than waning. The Summit is growing too. And the domestic start-up industry is tagging along for the ride, with new companies like Datahug, Soundwave and Trustev benetting from more attention than would otherwise be the case. No doubt, as digital sales grow, if indeed they do, then publishers will become much more interested in working with technology start-ups. After all, its still rare to see even the larger international publishers working with start-ups. The convergence of technology and books is far from over, and the landscape in Ireland suggests that there are challenges and opportunities ahead for publishers.

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Meet EOIn PURCell

You can meet Eoin at the Frankfurt Book Fair (8 12 October) or contact him via Twitter: @eoinpurcell

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SERENDIPITY
Chance encounters are often the most fortuitous. At least thats what many people say when they talk about the Frankfurt Book Fair. That is why we simulate a chance encounter in every issue of FAQ in the form of a surprising perspective on the publishing industry. In this issue, we take a look at the new investors in publishing: crowdinvestment, corporate ventures and venture capital are new sources of money that have only just begun to emerge.

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A QUICK CASH INJECTION? OR IN fOR THE LONG HAUL?

Finding investors is a challenge for publishing start-ups. Crowd investing is only just starting to emerge, and institutional investors need to believe in the founders vision just as much as the founders do themselves. Investors, in turn, are no less diverse than the publishing start-ups themselves. What they all have in common is the search for the next big thing, but investments in publishing innovation are not designed for fast exits.
By Ulrike Langer On 19 August, 2012, the cloud-based platform for digital college textbooks, PaperC, passed a milestone, when its crowd-investing project reached a successful conclusion. The publishing start-up was founded in 2009 in Leipzig, in eastern Germany, and is now based in Berlin. By the summer of 2012 it had already completed several rounds of seed funding, with financial support coming from both the private investment company Estag and the state-owned technology start-up fund of Saxony, as well as a number of business angels. PaperCs business idea is based on the fact that students often only need to read parts of a textbook, and that they prefer to make copies of specic pages rather than buy the whole book. But even these costs can add up. PaperC allows users to read more than 120,000 books from over 700 international publishers on the web for free. Payment only becomes necessary if they store content or using the latest features annotate and reorganise it in their own userproduced e-books. The payment options range up to an all-inclusive at-rate.

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Screenshot of the website paperc.com

In August 2012, this innovative business model convinced 53 small-scale private investors who bought into the company, with average investments of about 1,800 euros. This funding was made possible by the German crowd-investing platform Innovestment. PaperC is a poster child for this financing model. In general, however, crowd-investing, which is defined by its small crowd-sourced investments in start-ups, is still making slow headway. The first international crowd-investing platform, eureeca. com, based in Dubai and focused on the Middle East, started in May 2013. One of its first successful projects is abjjad.com a social network devoted to readers book reviews. In the US, a major obstacle to crowd-investing was only cleared in the summer of 2012 when the administration passed the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) act. As with crowd-funding through Kickstarter, Indiegogo and other platforms, most successful crowd-investment projects are technologybased. However, there are only a few examples of recipients in the publishing sector. These include Casetext, a free and crowd-sourced platform for

annotated legal texts. Using the platform Wefunder, Casetext collected over 1.4 million dollars. Several other start-ups are now trying to secure seedfunding via WeFunder. PadStar Publishing is developing AppTutor mobile learning apps for elementary school education while the selfpublishing platform Screwpulp employs readers of newly published books for peer-based reviews on social media platforms. Corporate ventures: what do the big publishing players invest in? While crowd-investing has yet to prove its broader value for the publishing market, some established book publishing companies have been investing in innovation for several years. Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments (BDMI), for example, based in New York and Berlin, invested in the audio book platform Audible, The Princeton Review (a digital college test preparation platform), the e-book platform Ebrary, and the self-publishing platform Xlibris. It has already sold all of these investments successfully, but continues to hold shares in the textbook publishing platform Flatworld Knowledge.

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Venture capital funds and publishing: love at second sight For some venture capital funds, publishing startups are only just starting to become interesting. In October 2013, the London-based fund DFJ Esprit was among those that invested in the British publishing platform Unbound, which is, itself, based on a crowd-funding model. This was DFJ Esprits first involvement with a publishing startup. Simon Cook, the companys CEO, sees Unbound as an exciting seed stage investment, because it revolutionises demand generation. At DFJ Esprit they call this the long nose as opposed to the long tail, which only fulfills existing demand efficiently. Cook is convinced: Unbound has the unique backing of authors and their fans and will evolve over time as the opportunity unfolds. One thing seems clear: If publishing start-ups and investors want to find each other, they each need long-term vision. William Troy of Macmillan New Ventures agrees with this claim (see interview

Simon Cook is CEO of DFJ Esprit and has been involved with the European venture capital industry since 1995. His past board roles include successful companies such as Lovelm (Amazon), Cambridge Silicon Radio (IPO LSE), Virata (IPO Nasdaq), nCipher (IPO LSE) and KVS (Symantec). Previously, Simon was a partner with Elderstreet Investments and a Director at 3i in Cambridge. He also worked as a strategy and IT consultant at KPMG and as a computer games developer in the 1980s. Simon is a graduate of the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST).

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below). A publishing start-ups true potential for innovation sometimes only emerges after several years. That is exactly what happened at PaperC which, after four years of support from its funders, has now further developed itself with new features.

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INTERVIEW | Troy Williams Macmillan New Ventures We take a very long-term view.
FAQ: Why does Macmillan New Ventures invest in interactive learning platforms? Troy Williams: At the core our focus is identifying interactive platforms, products und technologies that increase learning outcomes. Our goal is to help students learn more, better, faster and cheaper. We nd that technology-enabled solutions oftentimes reap better outcomes.

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FAQ: Are investments in digital learning platforms crucial for your portfolio? Troy Williams is Vice President and General Manager of Macmillan New Ventures, where he is responsible for identifying emerging technologies and trends that will have a major impact on student performance and outcomes. Macmillan New Ventures is the investment arm of the New York-based publishing group, which is best known for academic and educational publishing and which is, in turn, part of Holtzbrinck publishing group. Troy Williams: We dont discuss specic nancials but the digital technology-enabled solutions that we are developing are a signicant focus of Macmillans strategic direction. We nd that technology-enabled solutions are disruptive solutions. And we think there is ample opportunity to further disrupt the traditional players by doing things in new and more efficient

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ways. Many of our traditional products have different stakeholders that they were developed for. We want to put the learner at the center of the learning experience. Our core focus is increasingly becoming a customercentric and solutions-oriented company, moving away from a product-focused company. FAQ: What do you look for when youre investing in technology-driven publishing start-ups? Troy Williams: There are a few things. First, we look for investments specically in STEM learning (Sciences, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) especially at the higher education level. The efficacy of the products for STEM learning is much more apparent and measurable than oftentimes in the humanities and to some extent in the social sciences. Theres an opportunity to make a footprint with software as a service and put it in the cloud and enable far more cost-effective solutions that help universities achieve their mission. We take a very long-term view. Our goal is to make sure that were investing in things that are actually going to improve learning rather than things that might be having a little marketing success today but might not have staying power. We look at whether or not a start-up team is really solution-driven and shares our values about education. Do they at their core want to improve education on a large scale? That is important to us. Many times we nd that entrepreneurs really only started the company to sell it. In terms of stages of development we want to nd them when they have some market traction but while they are still small enough so that we can scale them up and hopefully leave a global footprint using our resources and taking advantage of our capabilities around the world. FAQ: Do you think that learning platforms will eventually replace textbooks? Troy Williams: That is difficult to say. We ask students structural preferences regarding print versus digital and we continue to see a lot of interest in having a printed textbook. That said, we think that there is a slow erosion of the printed textbook occurring, slower than we would have expected years ago, but denitely discernible. I think we can all imagine a future where many students will work just with digital or interactive products. Our educational system will transition to much more of a data-driven, analytics-driven and personalised learning experience, taking into account the students learning styles and target capabilities and providing them learning objects and content that is

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We think that there is a slow erosion of the printed textbook occuring, slower than we would have expected years ago, but definitely discernible.
optimised for them. The role of a static piece of content will be diminished. But that will happen over time and faculty members will continue to be important in most of our learning environments. FAQ: Is this a global trend? Troy Williams: There are international differences. Different norms for privacy and data collection exist around the world. Certainly, infrastructure is an issue in many parts of the world. The concept of having a digital device, be it a smartphone or a tablet, is not the norm in parts of the world. There is also recognition of the cost. There are certain markets where students families are expected to pay a lot for education. In others they are are not and the governments are footing most of the bill. When we look at the education market were dealing with multiple layers of institutions. They will determine how aggressively they move into replacing curricula that are working today with massive investments in digital technologies. Therefore, some places will advance at faster rates than others.

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Meet TROy WIllIAmS

You can meet Troy at the Frankfurt Book Fair (8 12 October) or get in touch directly:
letsdobusiness@macmillannewventures.com

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THE AUTHORS
Alva Gehrmann studied art history and microeconomics. In 2002 she graduated from the Berlin Journalism School. She has been working as a journalist and book author for over 10 years, exploring the world from Berlin. She regularly reports on the book industry and has been writing about trends in publishing for the Frankfurt Book Fair Blog since 2011. Apart from that, Alva writes for media such as DIE ZEIT, Financial Times, FAZ, Spiegel Online, GEOSaison, mare and Deutsche Welle TV.

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Nina Klein has an MA in history and is a trained journalist. She recently completed an MBA. For over ten years she was a print and radio journalist in Konstanz and Berlin before moving to Poland, where she coached a team of young radio professionals. From 2004 to 2007 she was director of the Warsaw Book Information Centre, after which she joined the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2008 as director of public relations. Nina is now responsible for the editorial media of the Book Fair, including the blog and the Frankfurt Academy Quarterly. She has a keen interest in new business models in publishing as well as in EU affairs. She lives in Brussels and Frankfurt.

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Ulrike Langer is a freelance journalist based in Seattle, who specialises in topics of digital media innovation. She writes for various trade magazines, such as Medium Magazin and Horizont. She also maintains her own blog, medialdigital.de, tweets regularly on Twitter (@ulrikelanger) and is a member of the moderator team for Das digitale Quartett. She is also responsible for the media innovation platform Vocer.org.

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Siobhan OLeary is an independent consultant, translator and writer based in Berlin. She previously worked in the Foreign Rights department of the Crown Publishing Group (Random House) in New York and at the boutique publishing consulting rm Market Partners International. She has contributed to several trade publications, including Publishing Perspectives and Publishing Trends, and has delivered talks on the US and German book markets at the Digital Minds conference in London, Editech in Milan and at the Frankfurt Book Fair.
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Eoin Purcell is editorial director at New Island Books He has previously worked as commissioning editor at New Island Books, commissioning editor with Mercier Press, and as publishing manager at Nonsuch Ireland (now The History Press Ireland). He has spoken at TOC Frankfurt, Digital Book World in New York and a number of other conferences on the future of publishing and the book in the digital age. He writes a monthly column for The Irish Times and since 2006 he has kept a blog on publishing and digital change. He lives and works in Dublin, Ireland.

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Frankfurt Academy Quarterly / Frankfurt Book Fair Publisher Holger Volland, Frankfurt Book Fair Editor-in-chief; Concept and coordination Nina Klein Contributors Siobhan OLeary, Ulrike Langer, Alva Gehrmann, Nina Klein Eoin Purcell Translation & editing: Siobhan OLeary, Alastair Penny Design & art direction Dipl. des. Manuel Rauch www.manuelrauch.com contact@manuelrauch.com Layout & key visual Alastair Penny mail@pennyweb.eu

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