By (This article lists the contents addressed in the latest edition of Readmagine, with the specification of the panels and workshops and the experts participating in each of them. From the article you can access other texts published on the K-Hub with the details of each session).
On 29 and 30 May, FEP participated in the annual Readmagine conference, organised at Casa del Lector in Madrid by the Germán Sánchez Ruipérez Foundation. The event, dubbed this year “Publishing as an amplifier of human creativity”, consisted as usual of two mornings full of presentations and discussions around books and publishing, looking at current trends, market developments, technological innovations and so on; topics ranged from new business models for digital content to data management challenges for publishers, from innovation in book fairs to book discoverability. The afternoons were dedicated to innovation sandbox workshops, in which individual companies presented innovative products and services. On the second day, Readmagine hosted once again the International Digital Distributors Meeting; one of the agenda highlights was FEP’s presentation of the latest European book market data (in cooperation with Aldus Up). Read more.
The first day opened with the introductory remark of the organisers, Luis González (Director at FGSR) and José Manuel Anta (Director at FANDE/IPDA). In the first session, Madeline McIntosh (CEO at Authors Equity) presented her company’s approach to publishing, defined as a new ‘Writer-Centric Mode’, in conversation with Porter Anderson(Editor-in-Chief at Publishing Perspectives); Authors Equity maintains a very lean corporate structure by outsourcing many tasks and gives authors a bigger share of profits but offers no advances. They were then joined by Michael Tamblyn (CEO at Rakuten Kobo) and Richard Charkin (Founder of Mensch Publishing) for a talk on “Publishing in an age of anxiety”, in which all speakers shared their main concerns and expectations for the future, based on data on a decline of reading [report of the panel here].
Then came a panel on “New digital content business models”, moderated by Javier Celaya (CEO at DosDoce), in which Jason Kelly (Founder of Sounded) and Paula Gallejones (Head of Product at Mondia) presented their respective companies’ models. Mondia is a mobile commerce company, whose Mondia Digital division offers aggregated and curated digital content to customers mainly via B2B deals with telco companies. Sounded is a B2B2C audiobook production platform and online bookstore that uses AI [see insights from the panel in Aldus KH].
This was followed by a panel “About educational content”, moderated by Marta Martínez (CEO at Grupo Anaya), in which speakers Karla Paniagua (CENTRO) and John Martin (Chairman at ILT Education) discussed the main challenges for education and educational publishers and the meaning of innovation in this field [report of the panel in Aldus KH].
The next session was a discussion on “Innovation in the book fairs landscape”, moderated by Marifé Boix (Vice-President at the Frankfurt Book Fair) and organised in the framework of Aldus Up, in which Eva Orúe (Managing Director at the Madrid Book Fair), Juergen Boos (President at the Frankfurt Book Fair) and Piero Crocenzi (CEO at the Salone del Libro de Torino) talked about how book fairs are adapting to changing market conditions and expectations and reaching out to younger audiences [report of the panel in Aldus KH].
Finally, a panel organised in the framework on the PublisHer initiative and moderated by Emma House (PublisHer) looked at “EntreprenHers: exploring the role of female innovators in the global publishing industry”, with Arantza Larrauri (Managing Director at Libranda DeMarque), Gvantsa Jobava (Vice President at International Publishers Association) and Searsha Sadek (Founder & Chief Product Officer at Shimmr AI).
The afternoon workshops saw presentations from Niels ’t Hooft (Co-founder & CEO of Immer Reading System), who spoke about social reading with Immer & Club Lees; Nick Coveney (Senior Key Account Manager Digital Services at Ingram Content Group), who presented CoreSource: Unlocking Global Distribution; and Lars Wallin (Product Manager & Founder at Colibrio), who focused on Building Inclusive Reading Experiences.
The second day started with a presentation of the 11th International Digital Distributors Meeting by Luis González and Pedro Castaños (President of the International Section of UDNE-IPDA). FEP’s Enrico Turrin then presented the latest data about the European book market, providing estimates for the publishing turnover in 2023 (stressing that while it was back basically to the peak level of 2007, this did not take into account inflation) and an overview of the trend for the first months of 2024 [report of the panel here].
This was followed by a presentation by Rüdiger Wischenbart (Digital Consumer Book Barometer) on “The Book Market in 2024: Publishing beyond Publishers”, focusing on the new circles that connect books and readers and are not captured by traditional measurements and highlighting the shifting paradigms [report of the panel here].
This year’s Focus Market was dedicated to “Rethinking Brazil”; Marcelo Gioia (Coordinator Tech Group at the Brazilian Book Chamber and Bookwire Brazil) provided recent data on Brazil’s economy and on the book market, highlighting the impressive growth of digital and its potential to help overcome social, economic and educational gaps in the country. This was followed by a panel on “Data management challenges for publishers”, moderated by Raul Pérez (Head of Digital at Grupo Planeta), in which Andrew Rhomberg (Founder of Jellybooks) and Michael Then (Director of Media and Digital Products at Weltbild) talked about how to use data to address challenges related to people buying fewer books, the upsurge in digital competition and the platform shift brought about by the emergence of TikTok and OpenAI [report of the panel in Aldus KH].
Next was a panel “About books discoverability”, moderated by Arantza Larrauri, in which José Manuel Anta and Searsha Sadek looked at various examples and possibilities of enhancing book discovery both online and offline [report of the panel in Aldus KH].
Finally, the session “Book eCommerce Platforms: An overview”, moderated by Carlo Carrenho (Publishing Advisor & Analyst), saw Mark Thornton (Senior Partnership Manager at Bookshop.org UK) and Sakari Luovio (Chief Sales Officer B2C at Adlibris) discuss the latest trends in e-commerce for books, looking at issues like understanding customers and international expansion [report of the panel in Aldus KH].
The afternoon workshops featured a presentation on “The future of peer-to-peer marketing” by the company The Tandem Collective; one on “Tech tools for publishers to improve the book selling” by Bookwire; and one called “Take the localization of your Mangas, Comics and Webtoons to the next level” by ComixSuite (De Marque Group).
