The 14th edition of Bookfest, the most important book fair for Romanian publishers and readers, featured two events in collaboration with Aldus . The two sessions, hold on May 30, featured international panels of book professionals that shared experiences and initiatives carried on in different countries in the field of audience engagement and reading promotion.
Book Publishing in the Age of Netflix: with a fruitful experience in Romanian publishing and a solid experience in educational publishing at international level, Paul Balogh (Learn Forward) has challenged the panel members to discuss how to better engage audiences in order to keep people focused on reading books. The international panel featured Niki Chang (The Good Agency), Lucy Beresford-Knox (Penguin Random House), Simona Kessler (International Copyright Agency), Mihai Mitrică (Romanian Publishers Association). Discussions were indeed vivid, since panel members had different background and experiences and they all had things to learn from each other, with the benefit of the audience.
How do we make people / Romanians read: Mircea Vasilescu, PhD, a renowned author and journalist, was able to get the panel members to show how individuals can be taught to read and then to fiind better solutions to make entire communities read. The experience of Biana Mereuță and her community ”What We Read to Children” has been well received, since Bianca Mereuță has told the story of a mother that just wanted – in the beginning – to get her son to love books. Then, other moms joined, and now the community is spread throghout the country, with thousands of members and volunteers. Henrique Mota (portuguese publisher and former President of the Federation of European Publishers) and Piero Attanasio (Head of international affairs at the Association of Italian Publishers) got the numbers on the table, showing the place Romania occupies on the European map. They both were able to share beautiful examples of campaigns in their respective countries, Portugal and Italy, that could also be replicated in Romania, with the help of the authorities.
The presentation of Piero Attanasio (AIE) “The reading promotion activity of the Italian publishers association: Lesson learned” is available for downolad to users registered at Aldus Community.
