According to Edouard Cointreau, founder and president of the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards and president of the Paris Cookbook Fair, more than 26,000 books on food and wine are published around the world every year. Last year, some 8,000 of them, in 40 languages from 136 countries, entered the Gourmand World Cookbook Fair Awards—and some 60 of them won awards. The awards, which will be presented at the Paris Cookbook Fair in March 2011, honor books in a variety of categories, from barbecue to “easy recipes” to photography. Winning means international recognition—and, occasionally, international rights and translation deals. And this year, says Cointreau, the number of submissions is up at least 25%.

As of August 31, publishers and authors from 144 countries had entered this year’s competition, said Cointreau, with Bhutan, Cook Island, Montenegro, New Caledonia, and Uzbekistan participating for the first time. Cointreau said this year he has seen more African cookbooks, as well as an increase in the number of countries submitting books to the category of “Fund Raising, Charity, and Community Cookbooks.” Wine books are on the rise, too, especially from “new consumers of wine around the world. The wine book publishers in the ‘old’ wine countries are less aware of [this] very positive trend,” he noted.

Gourmand International will have a stand at the Frankfurt Book Fair’s Gourmet Gallery. Gourmand’s booth is something of a meeting place for international cookbook publishers at the Fair. Cointreau said that Gourmand helped foster more than 200 foreign rights deals in cookbooks at its booth last year, and that interest in books from Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe was “stronger than ever,” while the French, Spanish and Italian markets were generally quiet (except for interest in books from chef Alain Ducasse, and from publishers Editions de L’Epure and Le Cordon Bleu).

The Gourmand awards were founded in 1995; its judging panel consists of a range of international culinary experts. Publishers and authors may submit titles for this year’s awards (which includes books published between November 2009 and November 2010) up until November 15.