Digital Minds, the conference that kicks off the London Book Fair, took place at the QEII Centre on April 7 with a large audience on hand and some lively speakers to inform and entertain it. Authors Anthony Horowitz and Richard Wiseman talked about their respective approach to writing, publishing, and their audience, with the latter touting his YouTube successes.
A marketing panel brought together several publishers, including Penguin‘s Charlotte Richards and Open Road‘s Rachel Chou, who shared useful insights into strategies and analytics. Chou talked about analyzing consumers’ clickpaths and providing follow-ups to both authors and retailers on what works. Richards also mentioned feedback, both to authors as well as employees, on trends, successes, and data. Her clever presentation used classic Penguin cover art to illustrate her points.
The children’s panel focused more on how children interact with digital, rather than what content they ingest. Storythings’ Matt Locke talked of how teens’ behavior has not changed as much in the social context, which jeopardizes their privacy. Echoing Locke, BBC‘s Joe Godwin talked about how mobile devices are to children today what cars were to earlier generations–they provide a sense of control and autonomy.
Despite its co-hosting the day, only Copyright Clearance Center‘s Michael Healy spoke, about “copyright at risk” around the world.
There were some newsworthy moments, when Bookmate won the LBF Innovation Award, and Dan Franklin of Penguin Random House announced the new My Indie Bookshop recommendation site, which one commentator called “The Sims for books.”
Many were waiting for the last panel, which included Faber‘s Stephen Page, agent Jonny Geller, Sourcebooks’ Dominique Raccah, Nick Harkaway, and Kobo‘s Michael Tamblyn. While they argued and opined, in the end it seemed that they all agreed that, as Page said, “the Golden Age is always in the past,” and as this correspondent would add, interesting times are always what we live in.
