Each Friday at 4 p.m. London time, 11 a.m. New York time, join us for a conversation on Twitter, hashtagged #FutureChat. When we asked The FutureBook readership to talk to us Friday in our #FutureChat Twitter conversation about who we hear from in publishing — and who we don’t — they rose to the occasion… Read More
4 Observations On Publishing From Anna Rafferty In Stockholm
“I tell stories digitally and I build audiences for stories in digital. That’s the best way to explain what I do.” Anna Rafferty hasn’t left the field. In the six months since she stepped out of her role as Managing Director for the UK’s Penguin Books Digital into private consulting, she has worked as a committee member… Read More
Running From Talent: And Your Next Chapter
Last month as BookExpo America and its Author Hub were about to convene in New York, I had the good fortune to be in Stockholm to speak at a conference called The Next Chapter. It’s produced by the very able Jonas Lennermo and his team at Publit, a publishing firm at the heart of Sweden’s highly literate, gracious culture. I say… Read More
Voices Less Heard: Must Publishing Always Take Sides?
Something that is often lost in a lot of these conversations about money is that economics isn’t just about money, but about time. It is that same economic equation that prevents me from going the self publishing route at this point in my career. There are already so very many demands on a traditionally published… Read More
Giving Voice to Innovation: Add Yours in Our #FutureChat
Friday at 4 p.m. London time, 11 a.m. New York time, join us for a conversation on Twitter, hashtagged #FutureChat – we’d love to have you with us. This is the author Steven Pressfield in his podcast interview (with transcription) this week with author Joanna Penn: “Hachette was the original publisher of The War of Art, and I would get 35… Read More
Marketing a Book Abroad? How About a Buddy System?
“I actually set this up with a dating portal software.” Matthias Matting Matthias Matting of Munich is playing something of a matchmaker for writers. HisAuthorbuddies.com has just gone live this week. It’s the sort of mutual aid society you find in the self-publishing world. You’re invited to drop by the site, look around, set up a free… Read More
Pan Macmillan’s Lloyd at FutureBook Hack: “Ask what you can do for readers”
“I think we haven’t done the great things yet.” Are you an author? If so, would it surprise you to know that that line came from a publisher? It did, and Sara Lloyd, Pan Macmillan’s digital and communications director, was set on making sure that the participant-hackers of the first-ever FutureBook Hack understood that she… Read More
FutureBook Hackers at work: Did we tell them enough?
As the mists rise off the beanbags here at the Roberts Building on the campus of University College London, the FutureBook Hack has about 19 hacker-participants at work. FutureBook-pink blankets still cover some shoulders. The smell of breakfast being set up is encouraging. It’s early morning. More teammates will join these. The message goes out:… Read More
#PorterMeets The Bookseller's Alice Ryan
When everyone sits down to the midnight feast this weekend at FutureBook Hack in the University College London’s Roberts Building, they can toast, among others, one Alice Ryan. The conference and community manager for The Bookseller is certainly managing some major community now, a collective of more than 100 developers, designers, entrepreneurs, engineers, coders, programmers,… Read More
Perseus' Rick Joyce on the FutureBook Hack: "What's possible"
“A hackathon is about the very beginning of thinking what’s possible.” And Rick Joyce, chief marketing officer for Perseus Books Group, will look at new iterations of those beginnings this weekend when he flies to London to judge projects in The Bookseller’s FutureBook Hack event. “A hackathon is a way to socialise what you’re looking for,” he says, “to socialise publishing’s needs to a community that… Read More