Oxford Brookes University | Publishing | Publishing Podcasts

Linda Bennett of Gold Leaf to provide an overview of the UK ebook market and emerging models including ebook borrowing

John discusses what it means to be Green in publishing. He addresses global issues as well as how to apply green approaches to the business of publishing. He talks also about his experience of running a small ethically-minded publishing company for over 20 years and the lessons he has learned. The talk explores how things are changing in the broad current economic and environmental climate and how this might affect business in general in the future.

Juliette will talks about her experiences of the commissioning process, seeing a manuscript through from start to finish and different approaches to editing. She will also touch on dealing with authors and agents and launching the book into the world.

Jon Dodd founded BunnyFoot in 1999, in the early days of usability, we were the first consultancy to offer professional accessibility services and the first to offer eyetracking as standard. They concentrate on user centred design and usability, and also offer specialist eyetracking services to ad agencies and for market research.

Many companies appreciate the necessity to engage with social media, including blogs, Twitter and Facebook. What is the marketing strategy behind this engagement and what kind of results can be expected? Publishers may be building their brand online, creating communities, or aiming to drive the sales of individual titles. Three experts explain the range of benefits from using social media. This seminar is chaired by Angus Phillips, Director of the Oxford International Centre for Publishing Studies at Oxford Brookes University. He is the author of Inside Book Publishing (with Giles Clark), the editor of The Future of the Book in the Digital Age (with Bill Cope), and the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Logos.

What is the carbon footprint of a printed book, and how does it compare with the carbon footprint of an e-book or an e-reader? Is digital more environmentally friendly than print? Should publishers stick with print, or lead the rush to digital? These questions are of serious concern to those in the industry as well as to authors and readers, as e-books and e-readers start making significant inroads into the domain of the printed book; where countervailing claims are easy to make, hard to prove, and even less easy to interpret. The seminar brings together an expert panel from the publishing industry to look at the current issues thrown up by the digital/print debate, to explore the extent to which the publishing industry has gone to reduce its carbon footprint, and to assess the options for not only reducing it further but for making it really green and sustainable as well.

An irreverent romp through 40 years of analogue and (from 1984) digital publishing – which should prompt some career ideas or at least cautionary tales. Based on his current business, David will also suggest how a growing number of 21st-century publishing businesses and careers will look radically different from the current ‘norm’.

This talk was given as part of the New Product Development module on the Masters courses in Publishing

What has to change for traditional publishers as they migrate to digital publishing? What stays the same? And can they make the transition without losing themselves in the process? Alison Jones is Director of Digital Development Palgrave Macmillan

Richard Hart gained a law degree from Cambridge University, then briefly worked as a university lecturer in law before getting his first job in publishing with Professional Books. In 1986 he was appointed Law Editor at OUP, and in 1996 left to launch his own publishing company, Hart Publishing – where he is currently Managing Director. In this talk, Richard Hart depicts the role of independent academic publishers within the publishing industry and speaks about how smaller academic publishers can indeed compete with large corporations and sometimes even do a better job than big businesses.

ActiveTeach was a landmark product for Pearson. The launch of ActiveTeach changed the entire market dynamic, making an equivalent digital component essential for any new course. This product is demonstrated during the talk, which covers the development of the idea and the execution of the product creation. Further information about ActiveTeach can be found on the Pearson web site

Suzanne Wilson-Higgins has over 20 years experience in publishing, bookselling, print-on-demand and ebooks. In January 2011 she was appointed Sales & Marketing Director at Lion-Hudson plc a publisher of Christian books and general books based on a Christian ethos for adults and children. As Commercial Director at Lightning Source UK Ltd, she launched print on-demand and e-book services to the UK market in 2000 and over 9.5 years developed the business from start-up to a broad customer base across Europe. Previously she served 5 years on the board of bookseller and library supplier BH Blackwell Ltd with responsibility for electronic service development, marketing and publisher relations.  And prior to that served 5 years with Reed-Elsevier plc subsidiaries commissioning business books, auditing digital rights, and championing digital publishing. Suzanne has also undertaken projects for leading internet retailer The Book Depository and an electronic technology service provider the Ninestars group based in India.

Toby Mundy is a leading figure in the publishing industry.  After training as a graduate recruit at HarperCollins, where he was editorial assistant to Stuart Proffitt, and later took on responsibility for Fontana Press, he joined Weidenfeld & Nicolson as editorial director in 1998. In 2000 he became managing director and publisher of newly formed Atlantic Books, whose bestsellers include the Booker winning The White Tiger, by Aravind Adiga, and recent titles such as The Slap byChristos Tsiolkas.

John Thompson is Professor of Sociology at Cambridge University and Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge. Recent publications include Books in the Digital Age (2005) andMerchants of Culture (2010).  He was awarded the European Amalfi Prize for Sociology and the Social Sciences in 2001 for his work on political scandal. In his book Merchants of Culture he provides a fascinating account of the high-risk culture in consumer publishing on both sides of the Atlantic. Revealed is the world of agents and scouts, of auctions and deals, often with large sums of money paid out to authors, as publishers gamble in the hope of signing the next Harry Potter or Dan Brown.

Barbara Trapido is an internationally successful author, renowned for her dark satirical comedies.  She has written a number of novels, including Brother of the More Famous Jack (1982), which won the Whitbread Special Prize for Fiction,Temples of Delight (1990), shortlisted for the Sunday Express Book of the Year Award, Juggling (1994), and Frankie & Stankie (2003). In its mix of people from different spheres, Sex and Stravinsky, published by Bloomsbury in May 2010, throws up the complexity, cruelty and richness of the global world while, as a sequence of personal stories, it comes together like a dance; a masquerade in which things are not always what they seem.