This Wednesday, July 11, at 12:30 Eastern time, Publishers Launch Conferences is holding our first-ever free webinar: An Introduction to SaaS and Cloud Services for Book Publishers. You are invited to join us by registering here. It will feature Hachette COO and BISG co-chair Ken Michaels; Perseus CMO Rick Joyce; publishing segment head of the global consulting practice for Tata Consultancy Services John Wicker; and consultant Ted Hill; in conversation with Mike Shatzkin and Michael Cader.
The webinar is sponsored by Tata Consultancy Services and Publishers Launch global sponsors Constellation and Copyright Clearance Center, and it will provide a great concise overview of what we’ll cover in depth on Thursday, July 26 in New York City at our full-day show, Book Publishing in the Cloud: How Software as a Service is Transforming the Book Publishing Industry.
For people who like to say they have digital conference fatigue, this initiative is wholly original and unlike anything you’ve seen before. Cloud-based services are giving publishers large and small access to a broad spectrum of robust solutions (for rights, royalties and permissions, galleys, title management, piracy monitoring, enterprise management, marketing and email, conversion, composition, and much more) at modest prices and with easy implementation. And publishers including HBG are now looking at marketing their own cloud services to peers. Software as a service has already transformed business processes in many other industries, and it’s finally coming to book publishing in a major way. Mike Shatzkin has a rich description of the strategic significance of this shift today on The Shatzkin Files.
The full-day conference will present a detailed tutorial from a variety of top industry executives, and includes two hours of “speed dating” info and question-and-answers sessions with the featured experts as well as our sponsors (with Firebrand Technologies, Virtusales, IBM, and Klopotek rounding out the roster).
Discounted tickets offering $150 off the list price are available through this Friday only; for the price of an hour of consultation you’ll get a full day to understand the possibilities for transforming some of your business practices.
The July 11 free webinar will explain why cloud services are critical to publishers wanting to stay competitive and will review the range of services available. Another great introduction is the free 15-minute audio version of Ken Michaels’ speech at Publishers Launch BEA.