If you’ve never been to the Frankfurt Book Fair I can tell you, as the leading Book Fair in the world happening in the Little Big Apple, it’s super impressive.

You walk through the buzzy halls and you feel it:

This is where decisions are made. This is where books become products. This is where global publishing moves. This is where to pitch my story or my designs.

It’s of course where hundreds of thousands of readers show up, 240,000 (with 118,000 trade visitors!) to be specific. In comparison, Leipzig reached a record of 313,000 (with only 55,000 of them being trade visitors!).

So in my view the numbers alone show, Leipzig is different. It doesn’t feel so business-y and it’s where readers show up, cosplayers, manga and comic fans and loads of indie publishers.

I saw teenagers sitting on the floor reading or playing card games. I saw people carrying five, six, seven books at once (okay, maybe it was me in the mirror!). You see lines forming around authors you may have never heard of. You see colourful and unique looking booths or simply a table with some decoration.

And suddenly I realize:

This is the book fair for indie publishers and raving (book, manga, comic, cosplay) fans. A fair for the small guys who want to be independant.