At the entrance to the Salone Internazionale del Libro di Torino. running through May 19. Image: SILT
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
500 or More in the Torino Rights Center
As is the case at many of the international publishing industry’s public-facing book fairs, the Salone Internazionale del Libro di Torino in recent years has made a point of developing its rights center and fellowship offering—the “professional program” you now find attached to so many such events.
This trend, of course, obviously supports the internationalization that many of these fairs want to stress, with agents, rights directors, and others coming in during the fair to hold meetings with counterparts from the local setting and many other markets.
What’s more, the presence of a rights-trading program and other offerings for professionals during a book fair provides more “news hooks” for these fairs: while the excellence of a good exhibition floor and many people perusing the stands is certainly the story to offer to general consumer-based local press, it’s a good professional effort that drives the various industry media to report panel discussions, presentations of market statistics, one-on-one meetings and trading opportunities.
Newly arriving figures from Torino tell us that the Rights Center, closing Friday (May 16) has had 450 publishing professionals from 38 countries, all of them registered on the digital platform the company uses to set up meetings and participation.
- Forty-two participants are film-production companies (despite, as organizers point out, the fact that Cannes is in session at the same time this year);
- Literary and scouting agencies account for 147 registrants; and
- Publishers make up the remaining 261.
Participants have used the one-on-one “matching” platform to set up 4,056 meetings. And, of course, around this activity, many contacts and conversations occur between rights-center players and others at the fair including translators, agents, authors, and journalists, the fair itself being just next door to the rights facility.
Seventy Professional Program Fellows
In the 2025 Salone Internazionale del Libro di Torino rights center. Image: SILT
The Torino fair has been particularly committed to this direction among many fairs and to building awareness of its opportunities for those who buy and sell rights and are looking for entry points into a market like Italy’s.
This year running for three days, the rights center has gotten its usual jump on public attendees at the fair, opening on Wednesday (May 14) to run through Friday.
Seated in the Lingotto Congress Center, the program was prepared for as many as 500 or more publishing professionals this week, many from outside Italy, and, as noted, reached a registration level of 450. Registrants include publishers, literary scouts, film and literary agencies, and production companies.
We’re told that there were 414 applications for this year’s fellowship program, which is made possible by the support of ITA, the Italian Trade Agency. As it turns out, 70 fellows have made it into the program, and many of their activities are attached to the rights center. And, for more emphasis on screen development, the fellows are based this year at the headquarters of the Torino Film Commission which, as organizers rightly say, brings the fair itself and that film commission closer together.
And we’ll shortly have some news for you relative to the Aficionado Award, which is a partnership of Torino and Frankfurter Buchmesse. And programming, should you like to peruse it, can be viewed here.
In the 2025 Salone Internazionale del Libro di Torino rights center. Image: SILT
More from us on international rights trading in the publishing industry is here, more on the Torino International Book Fair is here, more on international book fairs and trade shows overall is here, more on the Aficionado Award is here, more on Guest of Honor Italy at Frankfurt this year is here, and more on Frankfurter Buchmesse is here.