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Although much of BookExpo America's discourse seemed colored by the ongoing Amazon-Hachette dispute, there were a number of events that exuded optimism and excitement for the future. Among these was the Startup Challenge, a competition that highlighted the innovation of 18 startups hoping to make their mark on the publishing industry.

Barnes & Noble has reached an agreement with Samsung for the technology giant to develop co-branded tablets that will include Nook software.

Nate Hoffelder of The Digital Reader published a blog Tuesday hyping a U.K.-based survey that bears good news for ebook lovers. According to UK reading charity Booktrust, ebook adoption is at 29% among respondents. Good news, right? Perhaps, but in light of a more worrisome number, I'm less ecstatic.

Barnes & Noble acknowledged Monday that it has cut jobs throughout the company, but insisted that a report that said it had laid off its entire Nook hardware staff was “incorrect.”

The recently launched Scribd subscription e-book service is adding an app for the Kindle Fire tablet as well as providing updates to its iOS and Android apps.

The move brings the total number of countries where the Nook and Nook store are available to 32.

The new device will include Goodreads integration and access to built-in parental controls through Kindle FreeTime.

At our Publishing Business Conference & Expo in September, one very popular session was called "The Futurist Panel." Convened and organized by the visionary Brett Sandusky, it included a number of forward-thinking and innovative publishing folks, encouraged publishers to think more like software designers and less like, well, publishers, and debated the future of publishing as a craft and the core strengths publishers need to develop to compete in the publishing landscape of tomorrow.

Who knew that the book publishing industry would turn out to be a driver for technological development in the electronics industry?

We asked some of our favorite thinkers in the publishing world: "What trends will shape the industry in 2014?" Here's what they had to say.