At the FutureBook Conference on 14th November, Crystal Mahey-Morgan says she intends to to what The Bookseller editor Philip Jones asked for in his Turn up the volume post.
Jones, in that reflection on a Frankfurt Book Fair that seemed too quiet to some of us, wrote about #FutureBook14, as we’re hashtagging it, this way:
The developing themes this year are around what publishing has become; what business models are working; what the new channels are and how we push these sales mechanisms; and perhaps most importantly who the publishing executives of tomorrow are.
Mahey-Morgan’s career has taken her from work as a writer in her teens with the Guardian to work at the literary agency Peters Faser & Donlop and digital account management at Penguin Random House (PRH).
She’s now an independent consultant in creative strategy, digital marketing and contracts, and sees, she told me in our #PorterMeets live interview on Twitter. that her message to the conference that “without a diverse workforce in publishing, we are always going to neglect readerships who are valuable.”
.@Porter_Anderson @thebookseller We need to move beyond rhetoric and good will. How many ‘diverse people’ are there at senior levels!?
— Crystal Mahey-Morgan (@CrystalMMorgan) October 20, 2014
Her point — that it takes action, not just good intentions — will hardly fall on deaf ears at the conference.
Publishing’s diversity issues have been a priority topic of discussion this year, as evidenced just this month, for example, with Seven Stories’ release of its 50 best children’s books that celebrate cultural diversity in the UK.
As The Bookseller’s children’s editor Charlotte Eyre wrote in our story on the list, the compendium is aimed at young readers aged 5+ and 8+. Mahey-Morgan has her eye on a teen and early-adult demographic, the 16-24 market, which includes, she says, “a whole demographic within the YA group” that is “widely unacknowledged.”
.@Porter_Anderson @thebookseller @jamaledwards book is a perfect example. 16-24 demographic largely into music who took his book to #1 — Crystal Mahey-Morgan (@CrystalMMorgan) October 20, 2014
“We don’t do enough to engage them in the books industry and with the opportunities of digital,” she says. “Now is the time.”
.@Porter_Anderson @thebookseller we need to look to their spending habits with other forms of entertainment such as music, games and apps..
— Crystal Mahey-Morgan (@CrystalMMorgan) October 20, 2014
@Porter_Anderson @thebookseller and we need to look at the kinds of stories and content which they consume and engage them and make sure.. — Crystal Mahey-Morgan (@CrystalMMorgan) October 20, 2014
During her five and a half years at PRH, as my colleague Sarah Shaffi has reported, Mahey-Morgan “was also responsible for the creative strategy for Jamal Edwards’ book Self Belief: The Vision (Virgin Books), which was initially released as a series of digital ebooks.”
As she told Shaffi, “With an ever-changing digital landscape, there’s an opportunity for books to be established as another form of entertainment amongst a non-traditional reading audience, which as book people we need to seize with both hands.”
By Porter Anderson | @Porter_Anderson
The FutureBook: #PorterMeets Crystal Mahey-Morgan
Read the full post at: TheBookseller.com/futurebook
