Tag Archives: Frankfurt Book Fair

Are we all going to become Ferengis in digital age of storytelling?

The Frankfurt Book Fair, the world’s largest such fair, opened Tuesday, Oct. 12, 2011 and continues until Sunday, Oct. 16, 2011. This year’s guest of honor is Iceland and its literature. A major focus of this year’s fair is the buying and selling of rights for literary materials of all kinds. Authors and publishers are being urged to create business plans that incorporate multimedia strategies and filmmakers, computer game writers/publishers, and musicians will be discussing media convergence. Here’s the promotional video for this year’s fair laying out the possibilities in its approximately 1 min. running time,

As for those who may not be familiar with the Ferengi, they were a species of alien life form introduced in the tv programme, Star Trek: The Next Generation. Inveterate capitalists, the Ferengi live by their Rules of Acquisition. There you have my tongue-in-cheek comparison between Ferengi and writers. These days, it’s not enough to write a story. Now you have to figure out how to tell that story in multiple media.