2010 Theme:

"Book Publishing Is Going Digital, Now What?"

// Contact --> bookcampto@gmail.com // Hash tag --> #bcto10   // Twitter -- > @bookcampto //

More info.

 

 

BookCamp2010 is an informal unconference. This means participation and conversation is what we will strive for, rather than a more static event with formal presentations. So if there is something you want to talk about, now's the time to let us know. Even if you are on the waitlist, or don't wish to lead the session, post your ideas here.

 

 

 

FINAL SESSION SCHEDULE

(download pdf or see HTML version-thanks Joe!)

 

[click = big]

 

ROOM ONE:

 

9:30 Launching a Digital Business from Inside a Print Business

Sulemaan Ahmed (Director of Digital Marketing, Harlequin), Jenny Bullough (Manager, Digital Content Harlequin)

The challenges of being an ebook startup within a print publishing house and how to overcome them -- such as dealing with print production timelines when you need everything faster, getting the rights you need and when, the differences in marketing directly to the consumer as opposed to the trade/wholesale buyer.

 

 

 

10:30 Reading is Everywhere

Michael Tamblyn (EVP Content, Sales & Merchandising, Kobo)

Any book, anywhere. The future of reading is mobile, and Kobo is leading the way. (More info to come.)

 

11:30 Writing, Editing and Distribution is for Everyone

Allen Lau (CEO Wattpad)

Digital technology has done much more than turning print books into ebooks and reading them on eReaders.  Digitalizing has fundamentally simplified and changed the way written works are being created, edited, distributed, shared and read.  Ten of millions of people have already experiencing this new kind of book creation and new way for readers to consume and share it.  Allen will share some insight into this exciting phenomenon.

 

 

 

12:30 LUNCH

 

2:00 The Onset of Exhaustion: Publishing in 2010

Alana Wilcox (EditorIal Director, Coach House Books)

People in the publishing industry work long, hard hours making books. Until recently, a publisher would produce books, and present them to sales reps who got the books into stores. Publishers would do some promotion (some ads, a few events). And move on to making books again. But sales reps aren't enough any more. There are dozens of sales channels, all of which require more work: bookstores, readings, our own website, ebooks, iPhone apps, non-traditional sales, increased academic and library efforts, etc. This has increased costs significantly without a corresponding increase in sales. And probably multiplied the workload by a factor of ten. With no new staff. So, how can publishing be made feasible again? How can we find solutions to the exhaustion that comes with doing what's needed to promote the books we believe in, while still having time to publish books?

 

3:00 A Bucket of Cold Water: The Future Is Now

Denise Bukowski (The Bukowski Agency)

The last thing you need is another techno-oracle, predicting the future. The first thing you need to do is understand the current issues of the day that are absolutely critical top your success right now, such as:

1. Life Isn’t Fair – if writers don’t use social media to market themselves, their work will disappear.

2. Numbers Are Everything – Modern technology means that everybody in the business knows your sales figures, so you had better, too. So it’s not enough to be published; you need to be well published, or you will not be published at all.

3. E-books are revolutionizing book contracts, right now. Writers need to mobilize for fair terms; sign blind at your peril.

 

4:00 Building and sustaining a community of readers online

Tan Light (Coordinator, Digital Sales and Marketing Random House),  Meg Mathur (Online Merchandising Manager, Indigo), Kimberly Walsh (Associate Producer, CBC Books & Canada Reads)

It is a truism in community management that only a fraction of community members participate and fewer still actively contribute. Reader communities are a little different. Readers tend to be strong advocates for books. They are passionate about their favorite authors. They love to share and recommend. There is typically an abundance of talk about books. The challenge is to sustain reader involvement over time. This session will focus discussion on community building (bridging online with offline), engaging with readers, and keeping them interested. We will touch on strategies for reader outreach and retention but the talk will be platform neutral -- encompassing all tools and techniques for sustaining a community.

 

ROOM TWO:

 

9:30 The (Shifting) Role of Design in Publishing

Ingrid Paulson (Ingrid Paulson Design)

With ePub vs. print edition designchallenges, microsites and online catalogue needs, the traditional role of design to communicate and position a book in the marketplace is shifting to meet the new technological modes of publishing. What do we need graphic design to convey - and how is the role of the designer going to be redefined. This module would be ideal for both designers and marketers (and anyone with a passion for design!) to gather to discuss new possibilities, goals, and ideas.

 

10:30 FREE

 

11:30 Obscure Objects of Desire  

Neil Stewart (Anstey Book Binding), Aurelie Collings (Folded&Gathered Press)

Before Gutenberg, books were fetish objects collected and hoarded by the elite. Are we headed back to the future? A session on all things paper, printed, bound and beautiful. A text is not a book, which is another way of saying that a book needs to be more than a "content delivery platform".  A book that is well made and sensitively designed satisfies the reader, pleases the author and reassures the archivist in ways that digital (so far) cannot.

 

12:30 LUNCH

 

 

2:00 E-Books: From Structure to Typography

Scott Boms (designer), Joe Clark (journalist, author)

E-books look terrible. But why? Scott Boms shows some landmark examples of Canadian print books that are a challenge at best to convert to electronic format. There the issue is complexity of graphic design. But Joe Clark shows that even the simplest text gets hacked and mangled in E-format. Why? It's the ever-present problem of retraining authors, publishers, and designers to think in terms of structure  which, paradoxically, is the best way to ensure good design.

 

 

3:00 Venturing Beyond the Text

Ian Barker (CEO, Symtext)

Reading, and learning, just starts with the text. The real power of a book happens afterward: when you talk about, think about, and exchange ideas with your peers, teachers, mentors. How can we use new technologies and approaches to re-imagine the book? Especially in an educational context - to take advantage of the digital medium, a medium that allows mixing of texts and other media from many sources, and allows us to capture and enhance conversations in new and exciting ways.

 

4:00 The Book of MPub

John Maxwell (et al.), SFU/Canadian Centre for Studies in Publishing

Demonstrating an agile, web-first, multi-platform publishing workflow.

This spring, the SFU Master of Publishing cohort produced The Book of MPub, a multi-platform (web, epub, pdf, and print) anthology of commentary on the future of publishing. The project served as a testbed for a wide variety of agile publishing methodologies: open peer review, web-based editorial workflow, XML/single-source production methods, print-on-demand fulfillment, and community-driven marketing. Several of the project team will be at BookCamp to reflect on the process we undertook, and to query how these agile strategies can be used in other (i.e., your) publishing endeavours.

 

 

ROOM THREE:

 

9:30 eBooks in Education and Academia -- the glacial revolution

John Dupuis (York University), Evan Leibovitch (York University)

Description: Despite growing public acceptance of eBooks, two areas in which they could offer the most benefit -- education and academia -- are far behind the eBook mainstream. This session will discuss issues directly related to educational (K-12) and academic (post-secondary) use of eBooks from the perspective of authors, readers and libraries. The session will also discuss the current generation of eBook readers -- both hardware and software -- in the context of student and researcher use.

 

 

 

10:30 The Literary Grassroots: Magazines and Journals

Stuart Woods (Editor, Quill & Quire), Clelia Scala (Web Manager, OpenBook Toronto), Conan Tobias (Taddle Creek)

Literary journals, and publishing industry magazines have long been focal points for the most passionate reader and writers. The web has opened up new ways to fulfill the needs of this crucial grassroots of publishing. What is the role of these publications now, how is it changing, and how should it change? More info to come.

 

 

 

11:30 Where are you at? Geolocation.

Ashleigh Gardener, (Digital Manager, Dundurn Press)

Tagging real-life spaces in Yelp with metadata is hot. Foursquare and Gowalla users are encouraged to use their mobile phones to constantly broadcast their geo-location to the world. In this session we will explore the implications this has for books. Should you be adding geo-location data to your books? How? Should you use QR codes or GeoRSS? What kind of social interactions become possible when this happens? Can you tell stories this way? In this hour, we will do out best to get our collective heads around the next wave of (geo)innovation.

 

12:30 LUNCH

 

2:00 Leaping off the Page: Transmedia Storytelling

Mark Leslie Lefebvre (Titles Bookstore), Jill Golick (consultant, screenwriter, creative producer and speaker)

We’re no longer in a silo’ed world where novels, tv series, films, web series and social media are all separate worlds. With digital media's ability to "unleash" the book, what does the storytelling landscape begin to look like and what new possibilities exist that will help connect the storyteller/writer with the reader/listener in a way that was never possible before? How can instant online interactions affect not just the reading experience (ie, discussion, notes Q&A between author and reader, etc), but even the experience of creating a tale as it is being unfolded? This session explores the new modes of storytelling, the new platforms, and new ways to bring your tales to a wider audience.

 

 

 

3:00 The sBook

Bob Logan, Greg Van Alstyne, Peter Jones and friends -sLab at OCAD

The Convergence of the Printed Codex Book and the e-Book.

 

 

4:00 Unleashing Your Inner Reader    

Marichka Melnyk (CBC Radio)

Readers are passionate about books they love, and voracious. Publishers, authors, and the media can do more, cheaply, to help feed that apetite than ever before. But first we have to think about what those passionate readers want.

 

 

ROOM FOUR:

 

9:30 Literate Video Games

Tim Maly (Founder, Capybara Games)

Are video games the most vital narrative art form of the times? Where do they intersect with writing, literature, story? (More info to come.)

 

 

10:30 What Does the Writer Want?

Nichole McGill (author)

Once upon a time, a writer wrote books. These were printed on paper and hand-sold, thanks to book sellers and authors on book tours. Today, when an author publishes a book, they are required to do all this, plus maintain a "digital brand" of multiple social media channels, maybe throw in producing a book trailer and a streaming reading or podcast to boot. They must advocate that their book be available in multiple formats - audio, epub, mobile - to meet up with the demands of readers and if their publisher does not supply this, they must secure these rights and learn the magic of epub format, podcasting and metadata all by themselves. Er, what happened to just writing? Is there a way for authors to take advantage of new technologies without being overwhelmed? Is there a way to grow a book online that doesn't make traditional publishers nervous and actually makes the author money? Is there a middle way? An open session that points to a few examples of what some authors are doing and a discussion of what could be.

 

11:30 FREE

 

12:30 LUNCH

 

 

2:00 CBC's Canada Reads

Rosie Fernandez (CBC Radio)

How did a one-week radio program about books grow and develop into a highly anticipated yearly event that has "the Canada Reads Effect"-

making winning books instant bestsellers? What does Canada really want to read? How do you think Canada Reads should celebrate its 10th anniversary next year?

 

 

3:00 Data-geek Extravaganza! Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Bibliographic Metadata.

Julia Horel-O'Brien (General Manager, LitDistCo), Meghan MacDonald (Project Coordinator, BookNet Canada).

Most publishers and distributors know that they need good bibliographic data, but what exactly does that mean and why should we care? What is ONIX, and how do you make it work for you? What does rich, complete ONIX do for your books and how can it enhance your list’s visiblity and your marketing strategies? And, of course, what about ebooks? In this session, Meghan can give some insight into big picture biblio universe and all its possibilities, while Julia can tell the tale of someone who has worked at the nitty gritty data level. Bring your questions, concerns, and experiences – we’re all trying to figure this out together.

 

 

4:00 Going Alone: Educating the Market

K Sawyer Paul (Gredunza Press), Eisee Sylvester (Gredunza Press)

Currently, there isn't any sort of warning system or watchdog organization working towards educating writers on proper industry pricing, etiquette, and standards. The problem is that with independent publishing, choices in resource management are largely subjective, and digital publishing is almost too new for there to be universal practices. This session seeks to identify the most problematic areas of digital publishing.

 

 

ROOM FIVE: Hands-on workshops

 

9:30 FREE

 

10:30 Making Books into Audio

Miette (miettecast.com)

A hands-on demo of how anyone with a computer and a cheap microphone can make a high-quality audiobook for online distribution. Hands-on means: we're going to make you do it, too. It's easy, and fun.  Bring a text or an interview subject and your voice, Miette will bring her equipment, and we'll produce what we can.

 

11:30 Print-on-Demand Workshop

Rob Clements (Lightning Source Inc.)

Learn how to set up a book for international distribution using print-on-demand technology. Technical questions from graphic designers and production editors welcome.

 

12:30 LUNCH

 

 

2:00 Digital Do-Dads

Mark Pavlidis

A show-and-tell of digital reading devices.

 

 

 

3:00 Pimping Your Book

Ian Paul Marshall (Book Marketing & Toronto Writers Mastermind)

An author platform is vital in today's publishing world. So what exactly is it? Do you have one? And what's actually working in this wired world of ours. A lightning fast round up of book marketing tactics that people are using and how we can come together as a community to help support(pimp) each other.

 

 4:00 FREE