TiBE 2017 Yearly Theme: Sharing the Joy of Reading

The 2017 Taipei International Book Exhibition(TiBE) drew a crowd of 580,000 during the six-day event, with a total of 621 domestic and international publishing houses participating.

One of the most eye-catching features of the TiBE 2017 was its improved venue design. With the aim of encouraging exhibitors to beautify their stands while showcasing their publications, this year’s event launched the first-ever “Best Stand Design” awards, seeking to involve the participants and visitors alike in the continuous evolution of the book fair.

With the extended opening hours, TiBE 2017 attracted phenomenal attendance this year while creating considerable business opportunities. Book Republic was a success story among participating publishers this year. Its diverse range of offerings and bundle deals bumped up sales by 50 percent from the previous year. Also, local independent bookstores enjoyed popularity and massive sales, growing 25-30 percent from NT$1.4 million (US$45,477) in 2016. On the rights business side, the France Pavilion boasted a total of 11 publishing houses this year, and hosted over 300 copyright meetings during the course of the event, which was testament to the robust development of Taiwan’s publishing market.

The first-ever TiBE CEO Forum, unsurprisingly, was met with enthusiastic response from book fair visitors. Audiences filled the venue for all the sessions featuring business heavyweights like Chuan-Cheng Tao (陶傳正), Chih-Jen Sheng (盛治仁), Stanley Yen (嚴長壽), and Sheng-Yi Dai (戴勝益), as well as the talk by Wen-Jing Wang (王文靜) and Winston Shen (沈方正).V