Paulo Coelho's Frankfurt Moment

By Rachel Deahl -- Publishers Weekly, 10/16/2008 3:15:00 AM

The Wednesday of the Frankfurt Book Fair, in many ways, belonged to Paulo Coelho. The Brazilian author was the man of the hour at both the opening of the day's event and its close, being feted in a party hosted by his American publisher, HarperCollins. Coelho, whose work has been translated in more than 66 languages and who boasts over 4 million copies sold of his most popular title alone (The Alchemist), kicked off the Fair's opening press conference by dissecting his bullish attitude on digitization and the power of free material on the Web. It was, as Coelho noted in his speech, a pirated version of The Alchemist that appeared in Russia in 1999 that gave the author a huge boost in the country. After its appearance, Coelho said his sales jumped from 1,000 copies sold to 10,000 in one year. Today, Coelho's sales in Russia top out over 10 million.

Coelho, who told PW he spends nearly three hours a day responding to reader e-mail and blogging on paulocoelhoblog.com, has embraced both staying connected to his readers online and giving them content for free. (At the HC party, which was sponsored by BMW, TVs ran a loop of photos of Coelho fans, all of whom had e-mailed the author shots of themselves holding one of his books.) Is this a solution for all authors? Clearly not. And Coelho admitted in his speech that he doesn't ultimately know how the book business can embrace the power of the Internet while leveraging its longevity.

Nonetheless he's seen the digital light. "The Internet has taught me this: don't be afraid of sharing your ideas. Don't be afraid of engaging others to voice their ideas. And more importantly, don't presume who is and who is not a creator--because we all are."

This attitude was rewarded on Wednesday night as Coelho was joined by Fair-goers and his lengthy list of foreign publishers, from houses in Beirut to Barceona to Bangkok.