On Saturday I attended the CBA Super Saturday conference for indie booksellers. I sat in on a discussion that sparked a recurring dream of mine: Finding Hidden Money. Bronwyn Addico and Mandy Brouse (the winner of this year’s inaugural Chase Paymentech Young Bookseller of the Year), from Words Worth Books gave this talk and they were mostly talking about running events and the way that events should be run. First of all the similarities to the idea of providing local news in a hyperlocal model came to mind.
IDPF Digital Book 2010: A Short Recap
Earlier this week (a lifetime at Laguardia ago) I attended the IDPF’s Digital Book 2010 at BEA in New York. The show was very well attended (700’ish in attendance) with a great international representation and a large number of Canadians in attendance. It was nice to see some success stories and hear where things are heading with regards to epub and IDPF. Parts of the conference felt a little ‘sales-y’, but there was enough implementation and technical information to keep me, and I think many others, interested. Here are a few of my takeaways…
Back to the Future
The other night I went to a panel discussion billed as the Future of the Bookstore and I have been trying to collect my thoughts about it ever since but not sure I have yet. Predicting the future is a tough business and maybe not a fruitful one unless you’re Ray Kurzweil or an investment banker.
Post-BookCamp Brain Explosion
This past weekend, the second-ever BookCamp Toronto brought together publishing types of all sorts for a day of discussion, discovery, and drinking (the latter starting as early as 10:30 am, in Michael Tamblyn’s now-legendary Kobo Q&A/ summer wine tasting). The BookCamp “unconference” model is an intriguing contrast to the usual progression of talks/presentations/limited discussion time.
BookCampTO 2010: More Engagement, More Ideas
BookCampTO, my personal favourite (un)conference, rolled around again this past weekend. High fives to the organizing committee of Erin Balser, Mark Bertils, Alexa Clark, and Hugh McGuire—great work all around!
So, why do I love BookCamp so much?
Why I Went to BookCamp Instead of Sleeping In
This was my second year attending BookCamp Toronto. I admit to having high expectations for this unconference ever since last year when I came away feeling ignited! Sadly I didn’t get the same fire started for me this time around. I’m not saying that BookCamp did not provide great discussion but that little extra something was missing. I think what it came down to was that I am exhausted!
Making Information Pay 2010: The Newbie's Recap
BISG’s Making Information Pay 2010: Points of No Return was only yesterday morning, but it still feels like a dream. That may have to do with the inevitable daze of my first trip to NYC, but it may also be chalked up to the high speculation-factor of most of the morning’s talks.
BISG's Making Information Pay 2010: The Highlights
A few of us from BNC made the trip to Manhattan for this year’s Making Information Pay from the Book Industry Study Group. This morning conference is always jam-packed with information, and this year was no exception.
This Week's BNC Tech Forum 2010 Video: Michael Tamblyn
The hits just keep on coming! This week you can view Michael Tamblyn, VP Content, Sales and Merchandising at Kobo, in his session “Lessons Learned from Shortcovers and Kobo: A Year in the What and How of Selling eBooks.” Lots of requests for this one. Michael talks frankly about what worked and what didn’t the past year at Kobo, and gives a sneak peek at the Kobo reader. Enjoy!
BNC Tech Forum 2010 Session Videos: Dominique Raccah, Sourcebooks
We recorded all the 2010 Tech Forum sessions, and we’re posting one per week. This week it’s Dominique Raccah, Publisher of Sourcebooks. Dominique talks about creating vertical vision, content continuum, and “theatre of the mind” with enhanced ebooks. Watch the video, along with the others we’ve posted, at the BNC Tech Forum 2010 page.
