After All, After All
The idea of the industry! the industry! of publishing being a global one isn’t new. Our largest trade shows — London Book Fair, BookExpo America, Frankfurt Book Fair — have always been internationally, not least thanks to their rights and translation centers and special-guest-nation programs.
It’s interesting now, though, to see conferences at and around those shows picking up on the trend.
Even the author corps is taking a wider view now as outfits like Novelists Inc. stage a full-day “First Word” program in October focused expressly on independent writers’ needs and interests in international markets.
In the near term, London’s Publishing for Digital Minds conference on 13th April is the first to arrive. Live coverage begins that Monday at 9 a.m. BST (British Summer Time) / 4 a.m. Eastern, and will continue to day’s end at 6 p.m. BST. We’ll hashtag it #PDMC15, on Twitter, and hope you’ll follow along when you can.
In an unusual move, the conference — held at Olympia London, to which LBF15 itself is moving this year — will feature an international live-tweet desk.
Normally my own live-tweeting is a solo flight, but this time — according to Midas PR’s Chris McCrudden — I’ll be joined by associates working the live desk in French, German, Danish, Spanish, Portuguese and Mandarin. (Imagine the typos we can generate.)
And the programming itself, under the direction of Reed’s Orna O’Brien, includes several pointedly international segments including the Copyright Clearance Center’s Michael Healy speaking on “Digital Sharing: Protecting Copyright Around the World” and “Global Market Snapshots” featuring China and Norway.
The full program is here, in PDF.
Digital Minds’ most extensive international effort, however, was held in March, when #LBF15 produced a “Virtual Stream” comprising eight hours of international programming.
The numbers are impressive from this “Around the World in 8 Hours” event, as it was called.
O’Brien has reported that more than 350 people signed up to engage in the free event.
On the day itself, the 18th of March, “We generated 17.8 million impressions,” she says, “and reached 882,188 people on Twitter alone.
“Involvement came from 160 locations,” she reports, “from Tanzania to Argentina. ”
The program’s design was interesting, in that it utilized not only Twitter but also Google Hangouts and LinkedIn.
The highest engagement levels were detected in India, Malaysia and the States (where it was things got off to a start at about 5 a.m. Eastern time).
Interviewees and correspondents were drawn from China, Australia, Malaysia, India, Germany, Mexico and the US.
There’s more: Read the full story at Thought Catalog
By Porter Anderson
Follow @Porter_Anderson
Writing on the Ether: London Book Fair’s ‘Digital Minds’ Keep Heading Offshore
Originally published by Thought Catalog at www.ThoughtCatalog.com
