Oct 10, 2007, 15:27 GMT
Frankfurt - The Frankfurt Book Fair opened for business Wednesday, with thousands of publishers seeking deals with booksellers as well as offering foreign translation rights.
The five-day fair, the world's biggest in the sector, is also an annual showcase for literature and writers, and this year for the culture of the region of Catalonia in Spain.
Although ordinary shoppers cannot buy the books on display, the public will be allowed in Saturday and Sunday to look.
Until then, book industry professionals will be doing deals with one another and discussing the opportunities to earn extra income from books in digital form, either as online downloads or as parts of internet databases.
Nearly 7,500 exhibitors from more than 100 nations have taken space at the fairgrounds in the central German city of Frankfurt.
Book Fair organizers say 280,000 people are likely to attend the fair.
Catalonia has set up a special exhibition with 1,000 historic books from libraries and archives, including the first books in Catalan, highlighting past attempts to prohibit the Catalan language, which is spoken today by 13 million people.
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