To work together, not as antagonists The Bookseller’s Author Day conference opened this year’s FutureBook Week on Monday (30th November). It was the inaugural staging of a conference expressly meant to bring together publishing professionals, traditionally publishing authors, and self-publishing authors. Our term for the conference’s intent is “issues-driven,” by which we meat that it was not… Read More
Publishers And Authors: Inviting Them To The Same Party
Every Job In Publishing Depends On Authors How is book publishing divided today? Let’s not count the ways. Outsiders looking into this beleaguered industry, however, might be surprised at the reticence many authors and publishers can have about each other. Maybe about being around each other. Meeting each other. Talking more than friendly chitchat or… Read More
'A Year of Men Self-Publishing'
We started with the longest pause yet at the top of a #FutureChat session. Crickets. “#FutureChat is open for your comments,” I announced. “The floor is yours.” Beat. Beat. Beat. And then, after a couple of minutes, several folks braved the Twitter silence, editor Dan Benton finally easing the tension by suggesting that 2018 “Year of… Read More
What's 'fairness' got to do with publishing?
We seem to encounter ‘fairness’ questions in publishing at every turn these days. Three weeks ago, our #FutureChat focus was on questions of an “unfair” tendency to allow inconsistent metadata procedures and sheer negligence overlook proper credit for book illustrators. Two weeks ago, we talked about writers contributing articles and posts without pay to… Read More