Having been away from my desk for a while I was intrigued when I read the story in this week's edition of The Bookseller telling me that it was "business as usual" for the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Since last year's fair of course a few things have changed, the most notable being that several high street booksellers across the globe have either gone under or become severely undermined as readers have transitioned more quickly than we keep predicting to digital reading.
 
And yet the world's largest rights trading fair trundles on unmoved?

I am being slightly tricksy of course. As a meeting-place for publishing professionals from across the world Frankfurt has never been more necessary or more useful. This is particularly true this year as there are now two digital conferences before the fair even opens its doors (officially), making the Monday and Tuesday of this year's event must-show days for those keen to keep up with the shifting digital panorama.

As with London, Frankfurt has long been a space where budding digital companies can meet content providers and establish relationships.

Similarly, though we are still in the early days, rights trading will also change as digital starts to have a tangible impact on the types of genres and books that flourish in the new environment.

Chantal Noel, Penguin rights director, said she would be surprised if she came away from Frankfurt without “real, meaty progress” about e-books in foreign languages. “There will be a lot to discuss about our key author brands and the foreign language licensing of digital products,” she said.

Similarly, app-makers such as Nosy Crow will be using the fair, and what happens around it, to sell foreign rights to their products, just as co-edition publishers have done for decades - minimising risk while maximising overseas opportunities for their content.

With the world of publishing in a state of continuing flux as digital growth in English-reading markets accelerates, and with foreign-language publishers just beginning to smell the scent of change, it is heartening for those of us who still believe in publishing that it is "business as usual"—though of course this year of all years there is nothing usual about it.

* We are currently using twitter to crowd-source questions for Frankfurt's Thomas Minkus, using the hash-tag #askfbf.