Publishers Launch Frankfurt 2013

Tuesday, 8 October 2013 | Frankurt Book Fair
8:30am – 2:00pm | Hall 4.2, Room Dimension

8:30am

Introduction

Michael Cader, Publishers Marketplace
Mike Shatzkin, Founder and CEO, The Idea Logical Company

8:40am

Data-Driven Publishing: Using Big Data and smart analysis to make better decisions across the business

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With more data from more internal and external sources available to publishers than ever before, and with ever-more powerful tools and service providers to crunch them, it is incumbent on C-level executives to build Big Data capabilities into their organizations. The possibilities, and the imperatives, will be the topic for Ken Brooks, who has held senior management positions at Bantam Doubleday Dell, Simon & Schuster, Barnes & Noble, and Cengage, and is both a master of data and experienced with all kinds of publishing.

Although there are service providers to do Big Data crunching, and any publisher might use them for some challenges, Brooks believes that learning to use available tools routinely will become a necessary skill set in most publishing houses. He says the key is to become more “data-driven” in analysis and decision-making, because data-driven decisions are possible in more ways than ever before and because publishing is particularly amenable to improvement through the skilled use of data.

Brooks also points out that routine Big Data analysis will become increasingly accurate and beneficial over time. He believes it is an emerging competitive tool of great importance and that the companies that get it soonest will gain great advantage. In this presentation, he will give publishers ideas about how to use Big Data across their enterprise: marketing, editorial, operations, and finance.

Ken Brooks, Senior Vice President, Global Supply Chain Management, McGraw-Hill

9:00am

The Global Transition to Online Bookselling

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Amazon now operates its books business locally in 11 countries across North and South America, Europe and Asia, affording them a detailed view of how quickly sales are moving online around the world – across both print and digital. Russ Grandinetti, Amazon’s VP of Kindle Content, will talk about the pace of that transition globally and how that evolution compares to what’s already taken place in English in the US.  Grandinetti will also touch on a number of other topics about the continuing changes in the bookselling and publishing world as he sees them from Amazon’s unique perch.

Russ Grandinetti, Vice President for Kindle Content, Amazon

9:15am

Putting Audience First: Vertical Publishing Around the World

These niche publishers are rethinking the publishing business from the ground up, changing the way they acquire, manage, market, sell, and monetize content on a global scale. They are developing new relationships with authors, audiences, and non-traditional partners. They will discuss how they are leveraging their rich reader connections and deep content knowledge to expand and inform their publishing programs.

Marcus Leaver, CEO, The Quarto Group, Inc.
Rebecca Smart, Chief Executive Officer, Osprey Group
In conversation with Mike Shatzkin, Founder and CEO, The Idea Logical Company

9:45am

Goodreads Takes Book Discovery Around the Globe

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With 19 million members, Goodreads is the largest site for readers and book recommendations in the world. What’s not so well known is that almost half of Goodreads’ members (45%) live outside of the US. Otis Chandler, CEO and Co-Founder of Goodreads will present insights about Goodreads’ international growth and its impact on global book discovery. He will also provide examples of how publishers around the world can maximize the opportunities on the platform.

Otis Chandler, CEO & Co-Founder, Goodreads

10:00am

Morning Break

10:20am

The Challenges for Major Publishers in Today’s Environment

Charlie Redmayne is the new CEO of HarperCollins UK, returning to the publisher for which he was global Digital Director up until two years ago when he went off to start Pottermore. Now, fresh from a job where he worked for one of the world’s leading authors, in his new role he is highly conscious of the need for a publisher to be the house authors will favor.

Following some brief introductory remarks from Redmayne about what he sees as the priorities in his new role (and both pleasing authors and managing digital marketing are high on the list), Michael Cader will interview him about the competitive challenges big general trade publishers face in a world where they have one new massive competitor and one big customer that doesn’t stop growing. Following a couple of questions from Michael, Redmayne will take questions from the floor.

Charlie Redmayne, CEO, HarperCollins UK
In conversation with Michael Cader, Publishers Marketplace

10:35am

Understanding the Pace of Change

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The book market undergoes digital change at a different speed in every country. Although the change is usually measured as change in format from print to digital, perhaps the more useful way to think about it, and measure it, is the change from purchasing in stores to purchasing online. After all, the biggest adjustment for publishers is to learn how to reach markets without bookstore shelf space, and bookstores are affected equally whether they lose a customer to ebooks or to online print purchases.

Jonathan Nowell heads Nielsen’s Book information businesses, including Bookscan which compiles book sales data in many major markets around the world. In this presentation, Jonathan will focus on how the market for books has changed in US and UK, and he will offer insights about the pace of change in other markets.

Jonathan Nowell, President, Nielsen Book

10:55am

Germany: The Next Market in Transition?

So far, only in English-language countries has the digital revolution extended so far that it is clearly reducing bookstore shelf space and forcing publishers to really rethink their futures in a world where “putting books on shelves” will not be the strong value proposition for authors it has always been. It appears at least possible that Germany will be the first non-English country to experience those same effects.

A panel of German book trade professionals, including both publishers and booksellers, will discuss the current state of the German book market, the impact of digital change so far, and where things are likely to shift in the coming year. They will address such questions as:

* How fast is the growth of online book buying in Germany?
* How fast is ebook growth in Germany?
* Are bookstores doing anything different or making new plans to respond to a changing environment?
* Are publishers seeing changes in the marketplace they feel obliged to respond to?
* What is the state of “self-publishing” in the German market?
* Are either online buying or ebooks lifting the sales of English-language books in Germany?

Steffen Meier, Head of Online Publishing (eBooks and eCommerce), Verlag Eugen Ulmer
Ronald Schild, CEO, MVB GmbH
Tobias Schmid, Head of eBooks and eCommerce, Osianderesche Buchhandlung
Anne Stirnweis, eBooks Project Manager, RH Germany
Moderated by Mike Shatzkin, Founder and CEO, The Idea Logical Company

11:30am

Reaching a Global Audience of Readers

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Wattpad has a fast-growing user base of over 15 million members, including readers and emerging writers from the English-speaking world as well as from Spain, Mexico, Germany, the Philippines, Vietnam, the BRIC countries, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere around the globe. Wattpad will describe how some pioneering publishers are using the Wattpad platform as a marketing tool: building author-reader connections, publishing original short stories and prequels within existing series, and creating direct relationships with an increasingly global audience that buys their ebooks. And they’ll point to the major markets where their user base is growing quickly, like Germany.

Allen Lau, CEO and Co-Founder, Wattpad

11:45am

Lunch

12:45pm

Debunking the DRM Myths and Misunderstandings

Publishers Launch will tackle some of the common misconceptions about DRM even among informed publishing players. What (and who) are the real drivers of DRM implementation? What are the potential ramifications of making an industry-wide shift to DRM-free? And what are the true problems and barriers that DRM represents for publishers, retailers, intermediaries, and readers themselves?

Micah Bowers, Co-Founder and CEO, Bluefire

1:00pm

What You Need to Know about Digital Publishing in the Developing World

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Octavio Kulesz studies the world’s emerging markets: China, India, Russia, Africa, and Latin America. In this quick summary, he will tell us what we can expect to see as they develop into real ebook markets in the near future. How do local players and cultural differences change the game for publishers hoping to find new readers? Where can we expect to see the biggest breakthroughs soonest? How should publishers approach new business partnerships in these markets?

Octavio Kulesz, Director, Editorial Teseo – Alliance Lab

1:15pm

100 Million Content-Hungry People: the marketing opportunity for publishers with Scribd

In the six years Scribd has been operating its document-hosting site, the library of content it has built has drawn a global audience of over 100 million monthly users. These information- and content-hungry site visitors are great targets for book publishers’ marketing efforts and Scribd is now investing to make the audience even more accessible to publishers. Despite the initial focus of effort in the United States, Scribd’s growth has been truly remarkable throughout the world. With a presence in over 200 countries and over 90 languages, Scribd’s platform provides opportunity for publishers everywhere. Trip Adler, CEO of Scribd, will describe how all publishers can take advantage of the Scribd platform for marketing.

Trip Adler, CEO, Scribd

1:30pm

Cader-Shatzkin Conversation

Michael Cader and Mike Shatzkin will have a candid conversation about subjects they discuss with many players in the industry offstage but which they can’t find volunteers to have the conversation in public. They cover the most political and fraught subjects: the future of Amazon and other book retailers, what to look for from a Random House and Penguin merger, what might work as a strategy for the other general publishers, and what to expect from illustrated books in digital and the various social reading experiments, and much more…

Michael Cader, Publishers Marketplace
Mike Shatzkin, Founder and CEO, The Idea Logical Company

2:00pm

Closing Remarks