Why FutureBook

Just two weeks to go: book your tickets now at

www.thebookseller.com/futurebook/2015

Why I am chairing FutureBook

n the years since FutureBook launched, the publishing industry has undergone a radical transformation. The angst and the baby steps are firmly behind us, and a greater confidence and measured approach to digital innovation has emerged.

It’s been fantastic to watch FutureBook grow into a forum where we can explore the trends and ideas that are changing the whole industry, not just its digi-tal segment, as we reflect on and explore our future.

There are some apparently unstoppable trends that seem to be following an exponential curve, as the rate of change continues to increase. We are only in the second decade of what will be the digital millennium, and while there are more than two billion people connected worldwide there are five billion waiting to join us, with demands that we do not yet fully understand. What is really turbo-charging this connectivity is mobile platforms, and as I survey the publishing landscape I see many ways in which their emergence will disrupt and transform our industries, our organisations, our careers, and perhaps even life as we know it!

There is real excitement and opportunity, both culturally and commercially, com-ing from the growing diversity of cultural content, business models, innovations, the myriad channels by which to reach both audiences and, crucially, the writers who can show us new truths, new inspirations. This is what makes the publishing industry such an interesting and thrilling place.

We can’t predict the future; it is, however, important that we are ready for it. It is vital that we, as an industry, come together to debate, challenge and

inspire. So I am delighted to be playing a role in bringing together more than 50 inspiring people from across the media world to provide strategic insights, new provocations and the latest innovations to keep us all informed in an ever-changing landscape.

For anyone wondering whether to click the booking button I would say: don’t miss out on these vital conversations with the fiercely clev-er people who are transforming the industry.

I hope you will take part and I hope you’ll love what it gives you.

sandeep mahalCommere, FutureBook 2015

Europe’s largest publishing conference takes place on 4th December at The Mermaid Theatre, Blackfriars, London

I

utureBook is an unmissable date in my diary, and one of the highlights of the publishing year. For me, it works as a kind of ideas incubator. There is the obvi-ous, but powerful, freedom that comes with stepping away from the desk, some-thing it’s all too easy to forget to do in publishing. And something about this very

particular mix of speakers and panelists from within and without the industry makes for a productive and thought-provoking meeting. I have never left the conference without a notebook busy (and a brain even busier) with plans.

It’s genuinely exciting to see the development of a robust academic publishing strand, following hard on the heels of the success of the inaugural Academic Book Week in the UK. Academic publishing has been meeting the demands of digital head-on for a long time, and the challenges simply don’t stop coming, with Open Access threatening to turn long-established business models on their heads. But while academic and trade markets differ (despite a challenging climate common to both), many of the same themes come up as we redefine what publishing means, shifting our position in the value chain and focusing on the creation and delivery of meaningful content.

New academic focus notwithstanding, I still plan to plot a meandering path between the different strands. My own role at Oxford University Press bridges academic and trade publishing, and I find the most powerful food for thought often comes from the most tangential connections. This year I’m particularly looking for-ward to the new BookTech Showcase, putting delegates and disruptors together in a live “pitch-off”, and to the statement from the inaugural Author Day. One of the best

features of FutureBook is this constant evolution of new features and strands, as we all explore new approaches to innovation, to technol-ogy, and to keeping authors and readers at the heart of everything we do. And then there’s the connections made, old and new, and the opportunity to share ideas and influences, collaborate and build networks, feeding conversations and partnerships for the weeks

and months beyond.

F



Why I am attending FutureBook

sophie goldsworthyEditorial director for academic and trade, OUP




Why FutureBook 15 is the most important yet

philip jonesEditor, The Bookseller


he digital revolution, when it came, was like a rocket to the book sector, opening up new routes to consumers, new ways of publishing, new formats to explore, and igniting new conversations with authors. It was in the midst of this blaze of activity, energy and rethinking that we built FutureBook as the trade’s platform

to explore this emerging alternative reality. One of the best talks delivered at a FutureBook Conference came right at its

inception in 2010. The author Nick Harkaway spoke about the possibilities opened up by digital and how quickly they might close down if we did not act—and deci-sively. “This is the narrow window of opportunity,” he said. “What we do now deter-mines the habits people form and the way they think about digital for the rest of it. There’s a certain point where it is hard to change behaviour. We are in the window when we can now. If we goof now, we goof for a very long time.”

Digital is now part of the publishing business: integrated, job (kind of) done. From marketing and publicity (see Opinion, p19) to the new publishing (see Lead Story, pp04-05), this business has adopted and adapted. But Harkaway’s challenge remains, partly because if we have learned anything from the digital revolution it is that it does not stop. What we once thought of as road signs—the arrival of the iPad, the launch of the UK Kindle Store, the agency model—were only staging posts towards a future under continual revision and outside inteference.

Past FutureBook events provide the timeline. In 2010 delegates discussed DRM, the skills gap and agency; in 2011 more than 500 of you talked about e-book growth, authors, and brands; in 2012 consumer data made its entry, and we also looked “beyond the book”; in 2013, we heard of “better, faster, stronger” publishing outside the pipe, and the hackathon was proposed; finally in 2014 we discussed new audiences, building a billion-dollar app and YouTubers.

Where do we go next? The challenge is yours: this year’s event is focused on new publishing, strategies that work, the links across the different publishing sectors and the mobile revolution. At a new venue with an array of new speakers, we are open to the possible. Are you?

T



Why I am keynoting FutureBook

stephen pageChief executive, Faber


dangerous, lazy term has entered the language of our industry: “The New Normal”. This cosy, reassuring phrase has been spawned by our stories of e-book de-

cline, print fighting back, and booksellers doing better. There’s some truth to these stories, but please, let’s not soothe ourselves too easily. We’ve battled for

the last decade to re-imagine our future and adapt, but we have barely begun. If ever the industry needed not to rest on its laurels it is now. Growing confidence

and a sense of some kind of equilibrium, albeit dynamic and unstable, is the basis for bold steps towards our future, not a retreat to complacency. The FutureBook Confer-ence is our singular chance as an industry to challenge ourselves, encounter per-spectives both from within and outside our world, and to peer into the fog of “what next?” The world outside continues to change rapidly and, with it, the people who read and write. We ignore this at our peril.

While the book trade, and its balance of print and digital, may appear steadier, there are questions we need to address urgently. In the omni-channel retailing world (i.e. bricks and mortar and online together) how should publishers partner with re-tailers? Through such partnerships, what might omni-channel publishing look like?

While the book has stood its ground impressively during the digital revolution, what about the world around the book? What is the future of marketing, shopping and reading itself when our consumers increasingly live in a mobile-oriented and so-cial-centred world? What is the future for subscription and other models for creating

value for writers? What models might we invent? How do we ensure that we don’t lose out to other forms of entertainment? How do we remove barriers for consumers increasingly overwhelmed by choice?

And I could go on. The world is changing and we have to cope with that change and help to influence it as best we can. The only “normal” is that everything changes. Those who prefer a pipe and slippers, don’t

come to FutureBook. For everyone else, it will at least be eight hours when you get to look up and around.

I, for one, will be grateful for the chance.

A

Documents

Why FutureBook