Board of Directors of the Association of Publishers and Booksellers of Serbia (UIKS), which gathers around 140 publishers, decided at the session on August 6 to "suggest to its members" to give up the Book Fair.
They presented to them that there is not a single publisher on the Board of the Book Fair, that the number of visitors was significantly reduced last year and that the continuation of that trend can be expected this year as well, "which is an additional reason for many publishers to reconsider their participation", and that "the additional increase in costs and prices related to the organization of appearances at the Fair is also not without significance for the final decision on participation", their explanation said.
They don't want to go to the Fair.
Laguna, Delphi, Kreativni centar, Charobna knjiga, Parthenon, Pčelica, Dereta, Finesa, IPC Media and Kontrast - which is the majority of the members of the Management Board of the Association - announced already at that meeting that they would not participate in this year's Book Fair, and the others had until August 20 to decide, which was the date by which they had to register their participation at the Fair.
It is known that this October, more than twenty members of another association, the Association of Professional Publishers (UPIS), led by Archipelago, Geopoetica and Clio, who did not participate in last year's Book Fair, will not participate in this one or any future ones until the conditions imposed on them are changed.
Before all of them, many well-known independent publishers such as Booka, Rendet, and XX veka had previously given up on the Book Fair.
Hasty expectation of the public
The public is in the news that Laguna and other big and well-known publishers will not have stands at the Book Fair this October, immediately saw empty fair halls.
However, since then, the fate of the Book Fair has been kept silent. There is no information from either the Association or the Book Fair. They did not respond to "Vremena"'s inquiry about the number of publishers who registered to participate in the Fair.
Thus, the initial impression that the publishers have united and will act in solidarity against conditions that are bad for both the publishers and the audience began to fade.
Creative Center: Giving up without calculation
"We gave our members the opportunity to make a decision on this by themselves, within the framework of their business and financial plans, until August 20, because that was the deadline for registration set by the organizers," Dejan Begović, executive director of the Creative Center, told Vreme.
Photo: PromoCreative Center Bookstore
He directs us to "the organizers of the Book Fair, as the only ones who can provide information on the number of registered publishers at the moment", and announces that "in the coming days, there will certainly be a press release by the UIKS Board of Directors".
"Creative Center" refused to participate in the Book Fair. Dejan Begović says that there was no calculation in that decision.
He reminds that the "Creative Center" has been participating in the Book Fair since 1993 and "such continuous participation is certainly not the result of just 'calculations', because the Fair has, of course, financial, but also marketing, cultural and wider social importance for all of them. At the moment, they believe that none of those aspects of the Fair would have been realized for them."
Publishers to be on the Board of the Book Fair
At this moment, it is more important for the 'Creative Center' that the publishers' representatives are equally involved in the Book Fair Board, so that they can actively contribute to the organization of the Book Fair, both now and in the future, in such a way that all participants are satisfied.
"We cannot accept that the publishers and authors that the publishers present to the reading public with their editions are completely bypassed in the organization of the Fair, that they do not influence its profile in any way and that they even receive slaps and warnings from the organizers, as happened last year," emphasizes Dejan Begović.
Deterioration of communication
Experience tells us that the Book Fair would take place even if all members of the Association of Publishers and Booksellers canceled their participation. Because the only important thing is to behave as if everything is as it should be and that it is successful. Regardless of the fact that everyone will see that the largest and most prominent publishers are missing from the Fair.
Dejan Begović says that "last year we could see what the Fair looks like when there is no good communication between the publisher and the organizer".
"For me, and I believe for many other publishers, it is a devastating fact that no progress has been made to improve that communication this year either, but on the contrary, there has been a deterioration in that regard. The very fact that many important local publishers will not participate in this year's Book Fair, as things stand now, is tragic enough and no amount of boasting will be able to cancel the bitter taste that will remain with us after the Fair," says Dejan Begović.
From October 23 to 31, the Book Fair will be held for the last time at the Belgrade Fair. After that, he moved to Surčin. Because that's what the company "Belgrade on Water" wants. No one asks the publishers anything, and the Belgrade Fair, of which the Book Fair is, nods to everything it is told.
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