Hong Kong Book Fair 2015: a hodgepodge of concepts, publishers and distributors

Unlike book fairs elsewhere, the Hong Kong Book Fair targets the general public. Instead of a fair where publishing companies to get together to negotiate rights and licenses, the Hong Kong Book Fair is a giant discount-books supermarket, where visitors are encouraged to buy in bulk. Many do by bringing suitcases to the fair.

The bulk of the exhibitors are book stores, publishers and distributors. This overlap of distributors and publishers means that many stalls carry the same books, making the shopping experience a confusing one. To draw visitors to their stalls, many exhibitors try to outdo one another with their stall design:

Magazine publishers also turned up to show their wares and to attract new customers:

Other notable exhibitor categories include children and religious books publishers, e-book and stationary companies, and… foreign consulates; these were housed on the second floor, away from the main hall.

Lastly, I should mention there was also an author of the year stall on the second floor, featuring the life and work of Leo Ou-fan Lee. By the time I got there this year though, I was already too exhausted to want to stay and read about his life.