This morning I woke up thinking about not being at Digital Book World, or DBW. (However, one of my contacts told me that the coffee ran out by 10 a.m. The horror! The horror!) I have too much going on this week (read: am behind on deadlines) to have gone to Manhattan for the debut event, and so many people whose thinking about books and our industry are there whom I adore and revere. In other words, I woke up sulking.
But as I started thinking about what is going on at DBW, I also started thinking about why it’s being held. After all, we do already have a little publishing-industry event held annually called Book Expo America. Do we need another book event? How will these two conferences be differentiated (and I haven’t even mentioned Tools of Change…)?
I knew I was onto something when I opened Twitter and found novelist and publishing pundit M.J. Rose wondering why there aren’t more authors at DBW (NB: there are only two on panels this year). Will DBW wind up as the “delivery” conference and BEA as the “content” conference? UPDATE: M.J. has blogged about this issue, too, with a focus on authors and publishers working as partners.
I’d like to hear from everyone else. Is that desirable? My take is that in a time of more and more overlap and more and more need for “Authors as App” (also an M.J. idea as a panel for next year’s DBW — Mike, Guy, I’m volunteering now to moderate that panel!), it isn’t even possible. But (as usual) I could be wrong.
Tell me what you think — and those of you on the ground at DBW, please share the skinny on what everyone is saying about author presence/lack thereof this year.
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This post was mentioned on Twitter by thebookmaven: New Still Life with Book Maven blog — Should there be authors at DBW?: http://snurl.com/u7ewx @mjrose…
Very interesting post! -Something that all authors should be considering. And therein lies the rub: it is something that authors NEED to consider, i.e. the condition and evolution of how they are published, delivered, and read. As an author, I’d speculate that the dearth of authors at DBW is a lingering symptom of authors NOT taking enough in hand, of wanting to leave it to agents and editors, of being too caught up in the fiction of being just a ‘writer.’ Today, being an author means being your own manager and, increasingly, a digital advocate. Hopefully, next year’s DBW will include more authors. I know it will include me. Besides, I’d love to download M.J. Rose’s “Author as App” idea!
Great post – here’s my response: http://mjroseblog.typepad.com/buzz_balls_hype/2010/01/the-author-publisher-partnership.html
Don’t see any conflict (or even much overlap) re DBW and BEA programming. (haven’t been to TOC.)
DBW is a chance to delve deeper into the tech side of the biz; I could see this becoming a 3-day event, encompassing authors and booksellers.
Authors are mentioned frequently in almost every session I’ve attended, with lots of advice on how they should reach their audiences. Too bad few of them are here to listen and respond.
And I haven’t heard anything about how to include bricks & mortar bookstores in this brave new world (except Chris Morrow of Northshire discussing the Espresso machine and POD). Everyone agrees that bookstores hold valuable mindshare(Verso had stats yesterday to back that up), yet they seem to be an afterthought (if at all) in e-plans.
(of course, the high cost of a conference like this precludes most authors and booksellers from attending)
Certainly BEA could use more focus on these topics (haven’t seen anyone from ABA or BEA here at DBW. Hope they’re paying attention).
DBW so far has been energizing–not just the panels and session, but the conversations that have come out of them. I hope we can continue to build on what we’ve seen/learned here, and bring that to BEA in a practical way.
I think MJ is right that authors need to be part of the conversation, not only about new digital delivery systems, but about the industry as a whole. There is still a mentality that authors deliver content and publishers publish it. But it needs to be a partnership. What resources do publishers have to enhance authors’ content (and this will be more and more important) and what resources do authors have to help publishers get that content into the hands of readers/consumers? Everyone is testing the waters right now, and perhaps this first DBW really needed to focus on the underlying structure of the industry itself. As for BEA, I don’t see BEA as even the content side, just another piece of the delivery side, at least as in its current form. Historically BEA was a trade show to facilitate pubs selling to booksellers. I think it is time to bring authors into the mix.
Kellyann, I think you’re right: Authors haven’t delved deep enough into how they can become “apps.” I daresay many authors might say “But I don’t want to be an app!” Hmmm. If you don’t want to learn more about digital media and how it affects books, then take a good, long, hard look at what your goals in publishing are. Options still exist for Luddites, but they have different rewards.
Robin, thanks for such a terrific comment, and especially about the bricks-and-mortar part of the equation being AWOL. The thing is, authors still depend on bricks-and-mortar. How can we take that great relationship and morph it for the DBW PLUS BEA World?
“Certainly BEA could use more focus on these topics (haven’t seen anyone from ABA or BEA here at DBW. Hope they’re paying attention).”
I think rilnj has made an important point. Sometimes it seems like the various parts of this evolving industry are each running on a separate track. Survival (certainly of bookstores, probably of authors being able to earn a living, and maybe of the publishing industry itself) depends on cooperation, ideas flowering from different perspectives. I hope we’ll see more of that at events like DBW and BEA, but I don’t know how much time we have.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Kassia Krozser, Bethanne Patrick, Unbridled Books, JennWebb, Lauren E. MacLeod and others. Lauren E. MacLeod said: RT @NetGalley interesting post re: focus of #DBW ("delivery conf") and #BEA ("content conf") at @thebookmaven's blog: http://snurl.com/u7ewx [...]
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