‘Beer swilling and book selling’ But he doesn’t stop there. When Frontier Project Partner Jason Allen Ashlock talks about why that international strategy consultancy goes to Frankfurt Book Fair, he makes it clear that his Global 500 clients need him there because of one word: innovation. Ironically, it’s precisely that bid for the future — innovation… Read More
At Frankfurt Book Fair: Turning Corners on Self-Publishing and Amazon?
Here at the 2013 Frankfurt Book Fair this week, if we’re not actually walking past a couple of smoothly contoured bends, we may at least be able to peer around them.
(1) Self-publishing. We may be seeing a widespread, collective nod of recognition going on; not a big “eureka!” moment, but a frank acknowledgment that the energies of the entrepreneurial-author community no longer can be dismissed as a faddish bubble of activity nor as negligible in their effect. Bowker has stepped in to add some new edge to this concept.
(2) Amazon. Not only is there less time and energy wasted on bad-mouthing Seattle here in Frankfurt than in many such earlier gatherings, but one rant against the retailer has been met with stark derision in the publishing community, and, in a more signal moment, a major leader in the business has waved the closest thing we’ve seen yet to an olive branch. Read More
At Frankfurt Book Fair's CONTEC: Content, Technology…and Questions
The conference name CONTEC 2013 is created from “the marriage of content and technology,” according to the event’s programming director Kat Meyer. Read More
CONTEC: Self-Publishing's Implications and Impact
As Dr. Florian Geuppert of Books on Demand in Hamburg tells us from his own company’s seven-nation survey: “We have about 25,000 authors…these authors are in Germany, yes, but also in Austria, Switzerland, France, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland. So we asked them what is their motivation? We also wanted to compare the different countries and see where self-publishing really is. Because the movement (toward self-publishing) is broad in Europe, but not at the level of what we see in the US. It will probably get there.” Read More
Publishing is Now a “Data Game”
The session “Big Data / Little Data: The Practical Capture, Analysis, and Integration of Data for Publishers” takes place on Tuesday, October 8 from 10:40 to 11:30 a.m. at the Frankfurt Academy’s CONTEC 2013 Conference as part of the Frankfurt Book Fair. Read More