After the first cancellation of the Leipzig Book Fair in spring 2020, I used a Facebook group for independent publishers to find fellow campaigners for a joint book magazine. The idea: We publishers introduce ourselves – what else we would have done at the fair. Instead of the cautiously hoped for ten, there were 50 interested parties at the start. Our network now includes almost 100 publishers. And the demand doesn’t stop.
core of the network is this “Beautiful Books” magazine, which is produced twice a year by Edition Wannenbuch publishing house – with input from the publishers. In addition, many other ideas emerged, such as Reading tips posters and calendars for the book trade, joint reading tips advertisements in the press, active social media work and the website www.schoenebuecher.net. Beim Zoom-Event “Book: Cut” publishers from the network presented themselves online. We are currently exploring joint sales options or joint stands at trade fairs.
And we’ve been populating the site since March www.schoenebuecher.net daily with curious, exciting, colorful topics and stories. The almost 100 publishers offer an inexhaustible source. For the weekend Newsletter “Finally Friday” sent, currently to 600 recipients, and the number is growing every day.
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