In This Space

I’m a few days late for the BookCamp2 wrap up but better late than never, right?

First off kudos to Ami and Chris for a great day!

And for those of you who don’t know Bookcamp is an “un-conferencece” which means its meant to be structured discussions on topics put forth by attendees. We start with a blank grid and slowly people come forward to add their sessions.

Overall, what I find most interesting is some of these takeaways completely fly in the face of what I have read, seen presented or thought to be true. And perhaps that’s the greatest value of an informal conference. I’m going to recap the takeaways from the sessions I attended (also with so many good options it was hard to choose which discussions to attend.)

1.  “Who Will Keep The Flame” led by Emily Williams. The discussion revolved around the question, if digital is about scale is that at odds with personal engagement?” How do we as publishers/marketers/salespeople keep the love of reading alive? Needless to say we had some passionate and engaged discussion, it’s no secret we didn’t enter the publishing industry for the high salaries. And unsurprisingly we also talked about discoverability (drink).

• Librarians will keep the flame
• Social platforms can provide trusted recommendations
• Booksellers/traditional hand-selling

2. The experience of reading print books vs. the experience of reading eBooks – along with a game of Scrabble – led by Nick Ruffilo

Why don’t the folks in this session like eBooks:

• Tech issues, don’t own a reader
• Simply prefer physical books
• Want to be able to lend books (I take that to mean they want to borrow books.)

Side bar, the demographic of this “I do NOT read eBook group” includes folks who are creating them for a living. WAIT, WHAT?!

What do the folks in this session like best about eBooks, enhancements:

• Hyperlinks
• “Read to me” for kids books
• Bundled in reading group guides without adding heft
• Multi media integration

3.  Hand-selling in a Digital Age led by Stephanie Anderson. There are many touch points before a purchase, how can we direct people into buying locally?

Scaling Hand-selling

• “Live chat” feature on an indie bookstore’s website to help you choose your next book (LOVE this idea, and I really wish I could have caught the name of the brilliant person who came up with the idea to give them credit)
• A subscription model for a monthly, quarterly book

On a more local level:

• “Show and Tell” night in the bookstore where the staff could talk about their favorites – a live action staff picks if you will

• Hand-selling by Bloggers, can we reduce friction to get readers to buy from Indies instead of the Giant

4. New business models led by Guy Gonzalez. Can we crowd source the ideal publishing start up?

• Spotifiy for books

And the conversation shifted to the Book of the Month Clubs, which had a limited selection of titles.

• Smaller lists

Publishing only the books you can support with marketing. Shelf space is declining so there is an argument for less titles, and while digital shelf space is infinite focus is still limiting

Then we dived into a discussion about data and the importance of gathering and analyzing marketing data

• Find a need that is not being met and meet it (credit to Rebecca Maines)

Oddly, the whole session ended with an inexplicable apocalyptic view on the energy crises

All in all it was a great day spent talking with friends and colleagues. And then as these things go it was time for drinks: