Event Focuses on Publishing Innovation

By Janet Spavlik , Matt Steinmetz and James Sturdivant

With no government bailout in sight to rescue their ailing industries, more than 1,200 book- and magazine-publishing executives convened at the 2009 Publishing Business Conference & Expo in New York City, March 23-25, in search of strategies to help them weather the worsening storm. And while much of the discussion centered around cost-cutting, the topic of innovation took center stage throughout the event, which featured nearly 60 educational sessions and more than 125 speakers.

“In a time of so much doom and gloom, people actually left the conference optimistic, motivated and armed with greater insights on how to move forward through these challenging times,” said Noelle Skodzinski, conference director and editor-in-chief of Book Business and Publishing Executive, which co-produce the annual show.

“[The event] was … thought-provoking and a good glimpse into the challenges facing publishers, but also inspiring and informative,” said Anne Trudel, associate editor, Upper Room Books.

“The [conference] deals with the full range of emerging publishing models and related technologies … from the perspective of the publishing industry, not just the technology industry,” said Andrew Brenneman, founder and president, Finitiv Corp., who co-chaired the event. “The show not only sheds light on the evolving marketplace, but provides pragmatic approaches to getting new initiatives off the ground. This conference does more than toss around the latest buzzwords: It focuses on solving business problems.”

Attendees also had access to the industry’s largest expo of book- and magazine-publishing solutions providers-. “[This was a] great show for us. Very qualified leads,” said Holly O’Rourke, global public relations and advertising, EFI, a digital print vendor.

Here are a few of the event’s highlights:

Dissecting the Google Book Search Settlement
Tuesday’s keynote panel, “The Implications of the Google Book Search Settlement,” featured industry leaders who dissected how the settlement terms will affect publishers.

Tom Turvey, director, content partnerships, Google, represents the Internet search giant’s Library Project and Partner Program—which currently consists of more than 20,000 publishers globally—both of which feed content to Google Book Search. “What Google Book Search really represents for publishers,” said Turvey, “is that ability to integrate the full text of every book easily in a way where if [a user is] not searching for the title or the author, [they] can still find a book that’s relevant to [their] search, where formerly that book would have been completely invisible to end users. … And then, of course, [the end user] can buy [the book] … .”