Another two major headliners have joined the already-booked keynotes for our biggest-ever Digital Book World conference, set for January 13 through January 15, 2015 in New York (back at the lovely space in the New York Hilton). Amazon executive overseeing Kindle and other publishing-related ventures Russ Grandinetti will engage in a first-of-its-kind open on-stage conversation with Mike Shatzkin and Michael Cader. And bestselling author, serial entrepreneur, marketing guru and provocateur Seth Godin will provide a keynote speech, looking at “what’s possible and what’s important” for a variety of publishing players. Godin, who has been a traditionally-published and self-published author; a book […]
Book Fairs
BEA Will Fill Two and A Half Weekdays, Followed By Separate BookCon Weekend
BEA show director Steve Rosato announced the first set of changes to the 2015 schedule to deal with the needs of the now clearly separate trade show and Book Con constituencies. For the trade, BEA will be held on weekdays only, avoiding the problem created this year by trying to convene regular convention business on a Saturday (while launching BookCon on the same day). BEA will run Wednesday May 27 through Friday May 29 — but the trade show floor will not open until 1:00 PM on Wednesday. As Rosato notes on his blog, “We will face some challenges with […]
Beyond BEA, Digital Book World 2015 Announces First Keynotes
Looking a few big events down the road, our conference partners at Digital Book World have officially opened for registration the sixth annual conference, to be held January 13 – 15, 2015 in New York. Today’s announcement includes some of conference’s broad themes, as well as the first group of timely keynote speakers. Already on the docket are top CEOs — Brian Murray of HarperCollins (which recently announced their planned acquisition of Harlequin) and Linda Zecher of recently-public Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (the first part of an expanded look at ed tech and other education-related issues) — and two top authors, […]
BEA Planning
With Book Expo just a week away, we have updated our comprehensive, all-in-one-spreadsheet master schedule with still more author signings and event details. Use publun.ch/BEAschedPM to view it and simplify your convention planning. A variety of “special events” are marked in bold to help you find some of the more notable sessions. While author Walter Isaacson‘s Friday morning conversation about his forthcoming book THE INNOVATORS with Jacob Weisberg has been on the schedule for some time, earlier this week BEA officials declared him a “keynote speaker.” Breakfast speaker Neil Patrick Harris is covered this morning at E Online for the […]
Frankfurt Confirms Moving English-Language Publishers to Hall 6 in 2015
The Frankfurt Book Fair has confirmed in public what fair officials have been discussing privately (and thoroughly) with some of their biggest customers since the October 2013 show: The current English-language exhibition space, Hall 8, will be abandoned as of the 2015 fair, and those publishers will move into the multiple (but smaller) floors of Hall 6. That hall will also continue to include the busy Agents Center — though the agents and scouts will move up to the fourth floor (6.3). Recently, they have been on the ground floor. Note clearly that these changes will not affect the upcoming […]
Fiction Leads Rebound in Pre-LBF Dealmaking
As promised on Friday, we now have complete comparison statistics on the pre-London Book Fair dealmaking. Overall deal volume in the five weeks prior to the international fair (through the Friday before the event) has continued its growth for the second year in a row. Deals with US print publishers have increased to their highest level since 2010, now well above the low point in 2012, and deals with digital-focused publishers continue to add modestly to the totals, as show in this chart: Publisher investment continues to lag behind 2010, however, though it too has […]