As the dust settles on last week’s Frankfurt Book Fair for another year, this one will be notable for the return of the seven-figure advance before the Fair had even got underway - proving that rumours of the demise of the printed word are very much exaggerated.

So what are publishers backing? It would seem that in the US readers will be prepared to pay for the self analysis on offer in a work-in-progress subtitled “The Conversations We Have with Ourselves, Why They Matter, and How to Control Them”, by neuroscientist Ethan Kross. The rumours are that a publisher has paid $2million for North American rights alone.

Also at the top of the pre-publishing hit parade are two memoirs, both reportedly making in excess of $1million in advances. The first is by Adrienne Brodeur, who co-founded Zeotrope magazine with Francis Ford Coppola, and concerns her “complicated relationship” with her Mother. The second is penned by MIT professor of physics Sara Seager, and charts her progress as an Asperger’s sufferer who, at the age of 40, found herself widowed and a single mother.

It would seem that our taste for fiction also remains firm, with two works also rumoured to be worth more than a $1million upfront. The first is a work of historical fiction by Whitney Scharer about a photographer’s relationship with artist Man Ray, and the second goes to newcomer Kate Hope-Day who has penned a tale of four characters living multiple realities in a sleepy Oregon Town.

Sources:

1. Publishers Weekly:
   Frankfurt Book Fair 2017: The Return of the Seven Figure Advance.

2. Frankfurt Book Fair 2017:
   Click here.