Frankfurt Book Fair 2024

It was great to see many TBI clients and friends at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair. In what was best described to Mithu Lucraft in one meeting as “AI, all day long”, there was no doubt what was the most topical theme for attendees who came fresh from a powerful day of discussions at the STM meeting. The implementation of AI across the breadth of publishing continues, and it’s notable to see publishers are beginning to consider how to embed trust for AI into its messaging.

This focus on building trust in the application of AI is crucial. One key takeaway from the The Scholarly Kitchen ’s mini conference held on the Thursday morning was a downward publication trend for fully open access (OA) publishers including MDPI and Frontiers , following Hindawi Publishing ’s 2023 retractions.

While there are obvious strategic decisions behind this slow down (pulling back on special issues), there is a further reputational point that mustn’t be overlooked. In publication trends shared at the event, alongside the decline for fully OA there is a growth of OA publications in hybrid journals, fuelled by transformative agreements (TAs). Yet is it only the availability of OA under agreements driving this publication trend, or are authors increasingly minded to pay attention to reputational factors???

In recent author surveys for clients, we see a growth in the prominence of ‘reputation of the publisher’ within author motivations. Aligned with a continued desire for robust peer review, brands must continue to showcase why they can be trusted through authentic, transparent communications, and a refresh of brand messaging.??

This sits alongside the huge amount of work many publishers are beginning in their marketing and technology teams to put the right infrastructure in place for highly personalised author marketing. In our recently published marketing survey, we found that data, insights and analytics were the most challenging and priority areas for marketing teams, with increased investment in both budgets and skills in these areas. In conversations at the fair, we continued to hear about these priority areas, and how they remain critical to staying competitive, especially for submissions marketing.?

There continues to be a flurry of interest across the board in OA and open research topics. Beyond TAs and article growth, there is a desire to shift the narrative beyond ‘compliance’ towards demonstrating what OA can achieve, and for who. Another of the scholarly kitchen mini conference speakers, Charlie Rapple , re-emphasised the role that publishers can play in elevating work that is particularly relevant to policy makers. OA and open research are a key enabler here, as is proactive engagement of non-academic audiences, such as through plain language summaries.?

A final observation is the continued shift towards collaboration in the industry: either through cooperative sharing of stands (congratulations to the Purpose Led Publishing cooperative), or through mergers (further congratulations go to De Gruyter Brill for their exciting new brand launch: the new logo is genuinely smart and beautiful).??

We’re excited to be supporting clients with projects across many of these priority areas, from helping to consider the impact of AI, strengthening reputation and trust, strategies to grow article shares, and more. If something here grabbed your attention, get in touch to have a discussion with one of the team.?