11 Jun The Turin Book Fair and Paris Book Market: LBF Alternatives?

2 Seas Agency returned to the Turin Book Fair and the Paris Book Market, both of which have expanded in size and significance in recent years.

BY MARLEEN SEEGERS — ARTICLE PUBLISHED ON JUNE 11, 2025

Oh! Torino

As soon as I learned that the Netherlands would be the Guest of Honor at the 2025 Turin Book Fair, I decided to attend again. During my last visit to this fair in 2023, I had noticed an increase in international attendance, which was confirmed this time around. 

The fair’s Rights Center opened its doors on May 14, and I had a packed meeting schedule until its closing on the evening of May 16. A total of 450 publishing professionals from 38 different countries participated, including around 60 fellows. Like in previous editions, all participants registered on a digital platform to schedule meetings. This platform is extremely helpful; instead of emailing back and forth to find a convenient time, you can send out meeting requests and accept requests that have been sent to you (a great alternative is Calendly, which my team and I use).

There are a few things to keep in mind, however, to make optimal use of the platform—I know I’ll be going back to this list next time I’ll participate (unless, of course, things change in the meantime):

• Go “old school” by emailing the participants you definitely want to see. While there’s a way to prioritize meetings, if there are specific people you don’t want to miss, it’s best to schedule directly with them and then block that time slot on the platform.
• Avoid accepting and proposing too many meetings in the first few weeks after signing up. Participants can continue to register for the scheduling platform until it closes about a week before the fair begins. And in fact, new participants join daily, right up until the closure date. If you accept and propose too many meetings initially, you will end up with more accepted meetings than available time slots, with the risk of not being matched with some of the people you really want to see
• Don’t print or write down your schedule until it is finalized. The final schedule is typically released only a few days before the fair and is likely to change right up until the last minute. This year, I received my final schedule on Friday morning, California time, which is the end of the day in Europe; the fair started the following Wednesday. It looked completely different from what I had seen the night before when I last logged in. 

Since we sell directly in Italy, one of my main focuses was to meet with Italian editors from both publishing groups and independent houses—Italy is one of the markets where we sell the most, both in terms of volume and revenue. During these meetings, most, if not all, expressed concern that the Italian market is 3% lower this year compared to last year. However, some noted that this decline might be attributed to the lack of any major ‘heavyweight’ titles released so far.

Another important goal during my time in Turin was meeting our Italian clients: several literary agencies for whom we sell into a variety of territories as a co-agent. We had a great beginning of the fair, since it started off with a preemptive offer for world English rights for Leonardo San Pietro’s lauded debut Party with Cassowary, which we represent in North America and the Netherlands on behalf of the MalaTesta Literary Agency. Alfred A. Knopf editor Todd Portnowitz fell in love with the book immediately, and snapped up the rights. 

As I mentioned earlier, this year, the Netherlands was the Guest of Honor in Turin and many Dutch authors, editors and members of the Dutch Foundation for Literature were present. Dutch author Dido Michielsen, known for her bestselling book Lighter than I, which won the 2020 Dutch Bookseller Prize and sold over 120,000 copies, as well as Angel and Kinnari, was one of the invitees. I attended one of the interviews that her Italian publisher Nord (Gruppo editoriale MauriSpagnol), arranged for her. I was pleased to meet her in person for the first time afterward. We sold Italian rights on behalf of her Dutch publisher, Hollands Diep.

The Premio Strega Europeo, Italy’s most prestigious literary award given to a novel translated into Italian by a European author, was announced on Sunday evening. Dutch author Jan Brokken was one of the authors vying for the award, which was won by Paul Murray and his novel The Bee Sting.

This year, unlike my previous visits to the fair, I made it a point to explore the fairgrounds on Saturday—or rather, to elbow my way through the crowds! I was truly impressed by the number of people I saw in the various halls, waiting in line to meet their favorite authors, attending presentations, and purchasing books.

It reminded me of the crowds I saw during the public days of the Guadalajara Book Fair. It seemed that people from all over the country had gathered in Turin to attend the fair. It was wonderful to see so many people excited about books and authors. This is why we do what we do.

Several editors I met in Turin chose to attend this fair instead of the London Book Fair. They cited significantly lower costs as one of the main reasons for their decision. Additionally, Turin attracts a growing number of international publishing professionals, which made them feel they weren’t missing out by skipping London. Also, this year’s London Book Fair took place very early once again, at a time when many rights sellers were still waiting to receive materials for the titles they were selling. 

I noticed a similar trend in Paris the following month, when I attended the Paris Book Market.

Paris, mais oui!

On June 5 and 6, the fourth edition of the Paris Book Market (PBM) was held, and it was my third time attending this event. According to Publishing Perspectives, approximately 3,800 meetings were organized among around 525 international rights professionals. Organized by France Livre (formerly known as the Bureau international de l’édition française), this increasingly popular event brings international editors to Paris to meet with French and Francophone rights sellers.

France Livre also implemented an online scheduling platform, which launched one morning, European time, about a month before the start of the event. Due to an increase in participants—approximately 260 non-French acquiring editors, as noted in this Bookseller article—and the fact that the PBM only allows for two days of meetings, I found that by the time I logged in about nine hours later (due to the time difference with California), several people who had initially requested meetings were already fully booked. Fortunately, I had planned to stay in Paris that entire week for in-person meetings with our French clients and scouts, so I was able to arrange a few meetings in the days leading up to the event.

^{I, Julius Caesar was nicely displayed at the entrance of the Fnac Montparnasse}

The event took place once again across two venues in the Marais district, providing an intimate atmosphere. Like in Turin, due to the large number of participants and the relatively short duration of the event, my schedule was packed from early morning until early evening. I continued to receive strong interest in our 2024 Frankfurt Book Fair hit, the suspense novel The Novel of Marceau Miller which has now reached 14 translations, and counting (Ed. de la Martinière Littérature). On the nonfiction side, Sébastien Spitzer’s A Short Philosophy of Napping intrigued many (rights sold to 4 territories and a world English offer is under negotiation at the time of writing; Ed. de la Martinière Littérature) as well as Lux Editeur’s Becoming a Fascist. Diary of a Conversion by Mark Fortier (Spanish rights sold to Temas de Hoy/Planeta, at auction).

The bestselling graphic novel I, Julius Caesar, published by Allary Editions, was the focus of several of my meetings. These included discussions with Alfaguara’s Maria Fasce, who also leads Reservoir Books which is publishing the Spanish translation in July, as well as with Matthew Lore from The Experiment, the graphic novel’s American publisher.

The timing of this event coincides perfectly with the presentation of the rentrée littéraire, the annual highlight of the French publishing scene that occurs at the end of August. Here, as well, several editors I met told me they’d skipped London this year and preferred attending the PBM instead (it should be noted that these editors focus mainly on acquiring French-language titles).

French industry publication Livres Hebdo takes it one step further with an article titled Le Paris Book Market est désormais aussi important que la foire de Francfort which translates to “The Paris Book Market is now as important as the Frankfurt Book Fair.” The article quotes a French rights seller who participated in the event. 

I’m not sure about the validity of this statement, but who knows, perhaps some day this will reflect the truth. At the end of the day, who doesn’t want to go on a work trip to Paris in June?