Conference update:
Bookings close this weekend for FutureBook 2015, hurry to get one of the remaining seats at Mermaid London for the event, which is a week from today, 4th December. Our hashtag for that one: #FutureBook15
And on Monday (30th November), follow speakers and delegates at Author Day on hashtag #AuthorDay, the kickoff to The FutureBook 2015 Week. (Excellent essay on Author Day issues here from publishing consultant Katie Roden, who will be speaking.)
Ask them (almost) anything
They are publishers and consultants, coaches and journalists, business development managers and chief executive officers, founders and co-founders, digital and communications directors, technologists, association heads and content directors.
And they’re all one more thing: they’re panel chairs at The FutureBook 2015 Conference a week from today, Friday 4th December at the Mermaid in London.
And now they’re yet another thing: invitees to #FutureChat.
Join us today at 4 p.m. London time GMT (11 a.m. Eastern), to chat with and ask questions of some of the best observers of the industry. It’s a chance for you to put questions to folks who know the industry from the inside out and are both players and commentators, influencers of influencers.
When my colleague Philip Jones—The Bookseller’s editor and our programme director for The FutureBook Conference—set up our #FutureChat plan, he kicked us off with a lot of good questions:
At The Bookseller, the questions we began asking ourselves as far back as December last year—when the doors shut on the FutureBook Conference 2014—were what led us towards the event this year: what kind of industry does publishing want to be?
- Do we embrace the future, or look away?
- Do we engage with independent writers, the new book tech, and those building the new books, or do we push past them?
- Do we think of mobile as a platform or a distraction? A threat, an opportunity or a challenge?
- Do we want an early view, or one too late?
- Do we accept that we are no longer an island, or build a bigger wall?
And who are these panel chairs you might meet today in #FutureChat?
We’ve invited Anna Rafferty (@raffers), former Penguin Books MD for Digital, now Director of Product, Creative and Content for Pottermore. Her panel? “On the move: how mobile changes everything,” with Ether Books’ Maureen Scott, The Pigeonholes’ Anna Jean Hughes, Gojimo’s George Burgess (a Bookseller/Frankfurt Book Fair Rising Star), and James Luscombe of Pan Macmillan.
And another is Dr. Samantha J. Rayner (@samartha), who directs the Centre for Publishing at University College London. Her panel: The new publishing: the academic book of the future,” with ALPSP’s Suzanne Kavanagh, UCL Press’ Lara Speicher, Liverpool University Press’ Anthony Cond, and Richard Fisher, formerly of Cambridge University Press.
A regular FutureBook contributor, Tom Bonnick (@TomBonnick) of Nosy Crow is chairing the second of two panels on “the new publishing,” his focused on “content unbound” with Hodder Faith’s Ian Metcalfe, Visual Editions’ Anna Gerger and Britt Iverson, SAGE’s Kiren Shoman, and Touchpress’ Tom Williams.
And the first of the two “new publishing” panels is chaired by Redwood Tree Publishing’s Lisa Edwards (@Redwoods1). Her panelists are HarperCollins Emily Labram, Booktrack’s Cameron Drew, Lonely Planet’s Tom Hall, Quarto’s Mark Searle, Crystal Mahey-Morgan of Own It! and Julia Wilde of Agatha Christie Ltd.
More of the chairs you may meet:
Sara Lloyd (@BabyJuggler) of Pan Macmillan. Her panel: “Who’s afraid of the ebook plateau? Understanding the new consumer.”
Allison Jones (@BooksToTheSky) of Practical Inspiration Publishing. Her panel: “Face out: strategies that work and why.”
Peter Meyers (@PeterMeyers), who leads an interactive discussion titled, as his book is, “Breaking the page.”
The Publishers Association’s Richard Mollet (@RichardMollet). His panel: “Publishing through a looking glass: a view from the outside.”
The Literary Platform’s Joanna Ellis (@thelitplatform), who leads “The social room: using Twitter and audio for books.”
Journalist Molly Flatt (@MollyFlatt) who has headed up our BookTech Award Showcase.
And here are a few more of the kinds of questions we had from the 2015 Digital Census, as reported by Jones:
- When will publishers understand that if they don’t create books for devices, other “entertainment” business enterprises will?
- Why are corporations so relentlessly myopic? Why do they continue to think bigger is better? Why do they feel no obligation to support the people whom they serve with taxes?
There’s more: Read on
This story was written as a walkup to the #FutureChat of Friday 28th November 2015. Join us each Friday live on Twitter at 4:00 p.m. London (GMT), 5:00 p.m. Rome (CEST), 11 a.m. New York (ET), 10:00 a.m. Chicago (CT), 9:00 a.m. Denver (MT), 8:00 a.m. Los Angeles (PT), 5:00 a.m. Honolulu (HAST).
By Porter Anderson Follow @Porter_Anderson
The Bookseller: FutureBook’s chairs, warming up with questions
Read the full post at: TheBookseller.com/FutureBook
Info on the conference. The FutureBook 2015
