Speakers

Iris Blasi
Coordinator of Social Media, Hilsinger Mendelson East

Iris Blasi is the Digital Media Coordinator at literary PR firm Hilsinger Mendelson East. Formerly, she was an associate editor at Union Square Press, and she’s also worked for Random House, NBC, and The Idea Logical Company. Her writing has appeared in outlets including The Wall Street Journal, New York Magazine, Dow Jones Newswires, Publishers Weekly, BUST Magazine, The Jewish Daily Forward, Bitch Magazine, and BookPage.

Michael Cader
Publishers Lunch and PublishersMarketplace.com

Michael Cader is the creator of Publishers Lunch, the largest-circulation book publishing industry publication in the world, and its companion website PublishersMarketplace.com, which offers comprehensive news, databases, tools and more for book publishing professionals. For 15 years he created and produced over 300 books through his book packaging company, Cader Books.

Mark Coker
Founder & CEO, Smashwords

Mark Coker is the founder of Smashwords, an ebook distributor. He’s also an author, entrepreneur, angel investor and advisor to technology startups.

Mark and his wife Lesleyann co-authored Boob Tube, a satire on daytime television soap operas. Their book was rejected by every major New York publisher of commercial women’s fiction, despite representation by a top NYC literary agency. The experience inspired him to start Smashwords, a free publishing platform that allows authors to instantly publish their work online.

Jane Dystel
President of Dystel & Goderich Literary Management

Jane has been an agent since 1986. Her publishing career began at Bantam Books. She then moved to Grosset & Dunlap, where she was a managing editor and later an acquisitions editor. From there, she went on to become Publisher of World Almanac Publications, where she created her own imprint.

When she joined the agency that would soon become Acton and Dystel, Inc., she quickly developed a reputation for honesty, forthrightness, hard work, and real commitment to her authors and their writing careers. In 1994, she founded Jane Dystel Literary Management, which became Dystel & Goderich Literary Management in 2003. The agency is the product of Jane’s innovative vision of author representation as a full-service enterprise.

Rich Fahle
Founder & CEO, Astral Road Media

For Astral Road, Rich Fahle draws on his extensive background as a marketing agent for authors, publishers, and book retailers in the emerging digital marketplace. Before launching Astral Road in 2010, Fahle served as Vice President, Digital Content, E-Commerce and Entertainment at Borders. Prior to Borders, Fahle was Chief Spokesperson and Communications Director for C-SPAN, the national public affairs cable television network based in Washington, D.C. He is a graduate of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

Robert Gottlieb
Chairman of Trident Media Group

After 24 years at the William Morris Agency, Gottlieb started Trident Media Group, LLC in September 2000 where he now serves as Chairman. Robert Gottlieb presently represents many best-selling authors. He has consulted with the Vatican and the Russian Cultural Ministry in connection with intellectual property rights. He attends the London Book Fair and Frankfurt Book Fair each year with his team of foreign rights agents and oversees the foreign rights department as well at Trident.

Mr. Gottlieb built his stellar reputation by being the first and the most effective literary agent to brand authors. He works across all genres, in both fiction and non-fiction. His successes over the years include international bestselling authors Tom Clancy, Dean Koontz and Janet Evanovich. He continues to grow his list of authors which currently include international bestselling authors Deepak Chopra, Catherine Coulter, Elizabeth George, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Kat Martin, Mary Alice Monroe, and Karen Robards


Theresa Horner
VP of Digital Content, Barnes & Noble.com

Rick Joyce
Chief Marketing Officer, Perseus Book Group

Rick is the Chief Marketing Officer of the Perseus Books Group, involved in growth and digital strategy development. Rick is a co-creator of Constellation, the industry leading one-stop digital solution for independent publishers. He was the force behind the Book:The Sequel at BEA 2009, the pioneering transmedia sensation Cathy’s Book, and enhanced projects likeJFK:50 Days and Roots: The Enhanced Edition. Rick is a veteran of 20+ years in media, as a partner at Accenture, VP of Marketing at ASCAP, and a consultant at Booz Allen. Rick has a Dartmouth BA, a Columbia MBA, a New School MFA, and 5 children.

Ron Martinez
Founder, Aerbook

Ron Martinez is the founder of Aerbook, an eBook design and development company and publisher. He’s authored, designed, or developed entertainment, educational, and information titles in formats ranging from paperback book to massively multiplayer online game, and also spent a number of years heading up the global IP Innovation group at Yahoo!

Patricia Payton
Senior Director, Publisher Relations & Content Development, Bowker

Patricia Payton, Senior Director of Publisher Relations and Content Development for Bowker, is responsible communicating metadata requirements and best practices to publishers of all sizes. Patricia has experience in retail bookstores as well as international markets. She also holds a Master’s degree in Library Information Science specializing in Digital Libraries as well as an MBA. She actively contributes to BISG and other industry committees. You can find her on twitter @DiscoverBowker.

Jack Perry
Owner, 38enso Publishing Services

Jack W Perry has been in the corporate bookselling and publishing business for more than 20 years and most recently started 38enso Publishing Services in January 2009. He advises and consults publishers on a number of issues with a specific focus on digital strategy.

Current clients include Open Road Integrated Media, 3M (eBook Library Services), Highlights for Children and ESPN Books. Past clients include Sideways, Turner Publishers, Harry N. Abrams, Shambhala Publications, Perseus Book Group, Little Pim and NFT Travel Guides.

Jack has been an executive at Random House, Scholastic and Sourcebooks.

Renée Register
Owner, DataCurate LLC

Renée Register specializes in strategies for the creation, maintenance, and use of metadata to fully support content discovery. She recently launched DataCurate, a consulting and training firm focused on metadata optimization for publishers and libraries. Her work history includes ten years with Ingram Book Group and six years with OCLC (Online Computer Library Center). She holds a Masters in Library and Information Science and speaks widely on metadata issues.

Mike Shatzkin
Founder & CEO, The Idea Logical Company

Mike Shatzkin is the Founder & CEO of The Idea Logical Company and a widely-acknowledged thought leader about digital change in the book publishing industry. In his nearly 50 years in publishing, he has played almost all the roles: bookseller, author, agent, production director, sales and marketing director, and, for the past 30 years, consultant. His insights about how the industry functions and how it accommodates digital change form the basis of all of the company’s consulting efforts.

Michael Tamblyn
EVP, Content, Sales and Merchandising, Kobo Inc.

At Kobo Michael is responsible for sales, publisher and industry relations, content acquisition, and the merchandising experience across all of Kobo’s web and mobile services. He co-founded Canada’s first online bookstore Bookshelf.ca, which was purchased by Indigo Books & Music in 1998, where he served as vice president of online operations. Most recently, Michael was the founding CEO of the supply chain agency BookNet Canada, where he launched the national sales reporting service BNC SalesData and authored the publishing technology call-to-arms, “Six Projects That Could Change Publishing for the Better.”

Michael has a Masters in Business Administration from University of Western Ontario.

Joshua Tallent
eBook Architects

Joshua Tallent has been an eBook developer since 2002. He is an acknowledged expert on the Kindle and ePub formats, and his book, Kindle Formatting: The Complete Guide, has been praised as the most thorough explanation of the Kindle format available. Joshua founded eBook Architects, his eBook design and consulting business, in 2008, providing services to both publishers and authors, with a focus on complex projects and enhanced eBooks. He regularly teaches at conferences and workshops about building and designing eBooks, and he is a vocal advocate for beautiful, functional, accessible eBooks.

Scott Waxman
Principal of the Waxman Literary Agency, Chairman and Co-Founder of Diversion Books

In 1997, Scott founded the Waxman Literary Agency, a mid-sized agency with a roster of more than 200 authors, including many national bestsellers in a variety of fiction and non-fiction categories.

More recently, Scott has founded Diversion Books, a new arm of the agency focused on providing the agency’s authors as well as authors outside of the agency with the benefits of electronic publishing. Diversion has successfully published dozens of frontlist backlist titles, offering authors and agents a total epublishing solution that includes editorial, design, conversion, distribution, marketing and accounting.

David Wilk
Booktrix

David Wilk has broad experience in book publishing, sales, distribution, marketing and digital technologies.He operates Creative Management Partners, providing content creators and owners with a range of publishing services, including editorial, print and digital production, sales and marketing strategies, website development and consulting services. Websites include booktrix.com, livewriters.com, writerscast.com, prospectapress.com.

Wilk writes and speaks about the book industry. He is Director of Marketing for Good Business International (www.good-b.com) and a partner in Aerbook (www.aerbook.com) creating next generation ebooks for tablets and smartphones.

Current and recent clients include publishers, authors, thought leaders, corporations and nonprofits.