Publishing Business Conference & Expo Day Two

PUBLISHING BUSINESS CONFERENCE & EXPO: DAY TWO Revised on March 13, 2010 to include formatting and links. . . . Tired! A second lengthy day of again-to-again classes at the Publishing Business Conference & Expo right here in breezy New York City. I have pages and pages of notes, however restricted energy to turn them into anything coherent at 10:30 pm. Tuesday, March : Awakened once more from a deep sleep by lodge alarm clock at 7:00 am, and needed to get myself collectively for an 8:30 am session. I know, right? 8:30 am? I thought I smelled crack smoke once I walked in here. . . . The line at the Starbucks on the eighth flooring was so long I needed to go right down to the one on the first floor for my Venti Americano (two Sweet-N-Lows, no room) and a few undifferentiated pastry factor, however I nonetheless made it back up to the primary session in loads of time. Reinventing Today’s Publishing Company (eight:30) This was in one of many medium-sized roomsâ€"y’know, greater than the small ones however smaller than Steve Forbe s’s. There was something mistakenâ€"or several things incorrectâ€"with the sound system, but I could hear most of what was mentioned via bursts of static and the incessant sirens from the road below. Apparently there is always an emergency occurring in Manhattan, and in the course of the brief gaps between emergencies taxi drivers honk at each other. Loudly. But I digress. The seminar featured Cathie Black, who was identified (it really appeared as though she identified herself) as “the First Lady of American Magazines.” As President of Hearst Magazines, she will afford to purchase the title, I’m certain. She began out with the conference’s funniest joke. She introduced a video to point out but there was some technical problem that left her hanging a number of seconds then she said, “This is why I consider in the future of print.” Still, her pro-magazine marketing campaign had a certain stench of desperation about it. I suppose I agree that the readers are nonetheless there, but it seems the advertisers have run for the hills . . . and arrange log cabins there. Black was joined on stage by Jane Friedman of OpenRoad Integrated Media who may be the only individual I’ve seen here who had nice issues to say about Amazonâ€"and liberally dropped Jeff Bezos’s name. She said something I need to have stitched in needlepoint to hold up over my fire: “Physical books characterize civilization.” When moderator Evan Schnittman of Oxford University Press requested them what they thought the proportion of the enterprise e-books would symbolize in 5 years both ladies were smart sufficient to attempt to dodge the query, however Friedman lastly committed to 40%. I’m going to go forward and agree along with her underneath the idea that we’ll each be mistaken within plus or minus 30%. CEO Roundtable (10:00) Sara Nelson, formerly of Publishers Weekly now of O, The Oprah Magazine moderated an interesting session that includes Margo Baldwin of Chelsea Green Publishing, Clint Greenleaf of Greenleaf Book Group, and Robert Miller of HarperStudio. The dialogue continued to center around e-books and the idea (with which I agree) that within the foreseeable future e-books will coexist with print books, not substitute them. Robert Miller specifically had some attention-grabbing issues to say concerning the poor state of the publishing enterprise and the way and why it was the publishing business’s fault. The Book Publishers’ Social Media Strategy Guide (11:30) Though you’re reading this on a blog that you could have arrived at from a Twitter post, please believe me that I’m still fairly new to, and solely partially literate in the language of digital social media. I was delighted to see this seminar obtainable and found it interesting, enlightening, and will be finding out up on a few of the sites and concepts the panel shared with us for some time to come. In a few cases I was also pleased to hear that I’ve already began doing a fe w things proper. If you occur to note me much more out there within the social media world, likelihood is it’s a direct result of a number of the ideas picked up at this session with Brett Cohen of Quirk Books, Debbie Stier of HarperStudio, and Kat Meyer of Next Chapter Communications. A few phrases of encouragement from Debbie Stier: “You can fan your personal flames.” Rethinking Copyright for the Digital World (three:00) Chris Keneally of the Copyright Clearance Center gave a fast and cogent rundown of the basic parameters of copyright legislationâ€"a very huge subject he narrowed down to some bullet points that each media skilled higher rattling properly know. Keneally stayed on to moderate the day’s next (and final) session: Rethinking Author Contracts for the Digital World (4:00) Chris Keneally was joined by agent John Silbersack and lawyer Sara Pearl each of Trident Media Group. This was also very interesting for me, each as an creator and an editor, and you must keep your eye on this blog for more on the first subject of the session. Who owns the e-book rights to books written and published long before anybody ever considered such a wierd new factor? Random House and OpenRoad are getting ready to argue this out in court, and all eyes are on the outcome. Yesâ€"really extra on this topic in the weeks forward. And that was it for Tuesday’s conference. Getting later here, however I can’t finish without mentioning that, with the convention over for the day, I splurged on a ticket to the new play A Behanding in Spokane at a theater literally right throughout the street from the hotel. It was the theater occasion of my lifeâ€"seriously. Christopher Walken and Sam Rockwell have been so freakin’ good I’m in awe. It’s nearly onerous to consider I was actually there. If you might be wherever near New York City or can get right here earlier than the restricted run ends, I beg youâ€"beg youâ€"go see this play. â€"Philip Athans About Philip Athans Fill in your particulars beneath or click on an icon to log in: