Frankfurt 2026 was a very different book fair from the one we encountered a year earlier, and it raised some interesting questions about where international publishing is heading.
Last year’s fair was dominated by AI and questions of how could or should publishers, especially from the English speaking world, manage the intrusion of AI into the literary and publishing processes.
The 2026 Frankfurt Book Fair was different for many reasons, first the size of this year’s FBF was significantly smaller than the previous years’ fairs. The literary rights section location was huge and buzzing with agents.
Many exhibitors seem to have reduced their displays, likely for many reasons, including rental and display costs, travel costs and the uncertainty of global travel. Further, every geographic area globally now has vibrant regional book fairs with huge attendance. As one colleague from India told me, “I can do more business in Chennai and Delhi book fairs than at the London or Frankfurt fairs.”
Thematically, romance, horror and sci-fi seem to be the latest elixir for profit. In non-fiction, given the chaotic condition of the world, the obsession with self-help, health and food, along with a kind of global narcissism, seems to be widespread. I wonder to what extent AI-driven texts provide the backbone for both the general and genre publishing markets.
Mosaic Press still continues to find its way internationally, with the most encouraging responses from publishers from a variety of mid-sized countries - Switzerland, Albania, Turkey, Egypt, Portugal, Poland, Ukraine, and others. Mosaic has always worked with publishers beyond the major markets, but this year there was a noticeable interest from these countries. The Carney-defined portrait of Canada seems to work well in international publishing, too.
So how should Mosaic Press define its publishing strategy in this chaotic age and in this ambiguous and confusing publishing environment?
Over the past six months, Mosaic Press has signed contracts and will publish three historical fiction projects. Each book is carefully researched and brilliantly written, and each takes place during a major and catastrophic event that effectively changed the very nature of a country or large geographic region and redefined an historical period.
The first book deals with the fall of Constantinople in 1453, leading to the collapse of the Byzantine Roman empire and the rise of centuries of Ottoman rule. The narrator is a ten-year-old child, who bears witness to this earth-shattering event.
The next book is “a great novel about love in cruel times” (Westfälische Allgemeine) and recounts the courageous efforts of Italian partisans who, in 1943, trapped between the Fascist Mussolini government, the Nazi German war machine and the Vichy collaborators in France, declared their own independent and short-lived state in the mountains of northern Italy.
The third book is a generational history of a Hakka/Indigenous family in Taiwan, covering almost 100 years, and their struggle to retain their identity and culture as Taiwan is ravaged by Japanese colonial rule and then by the authoritarian rule of Chinese Kuomintang.
Big historical fiction, thematically driven where the central character or characters give voice to those who struggle to retain meaning and courage during a period of chaos, war, and disintegration....Mosaic Press thinks that such fiction may well be a hallmark of where and how good literary fiction can speak to our age.