Follow the Reader

Yesterday, I attended a conference in Newburyport, MA sponsored by Firebrand, a company that provides back-end software that helps publishers track and generate marketing information on books and authors. We are just starting to use the software through our relationship with Ingram Publisher Services. Firebrand is a 20-plus person organization that has been around for 20-plus years and is now getting its due at a time when publishers are finding that generating accurate and enriched metadata and content is becoming more and more important. Not just from a marketing perspective: the tea leaves in the publishing cup are definitely reading a revolution in what we think of as a book. Fran Toolan, the warm and brilliant visionary who is Firebrand, put together an energetic program that is one of the greatest bargains in the publishing conference schedule.

The theme of this year's 2nd annual conference is: "Follow the Reader."  And it is described on the conference website:

Borrowed from the name of the popular blog hosted at NetGalley.com; it seems a very appropriate context for us all to be thinking as we take the time to explore the changes and challenges in publishing today.  After all, it is the readers, who serve as the ultimate arbiter of taste, and ultimately the people who support all of us through their purchases.  As technologies become simpler and more ubiquitous, we all need to keep our eyes on what READERS are doing and how they want to be served by our industry.

The keynote address was given by Andrew Savikas, VP of Digital Initiatives at O'Reilly Media, publishers of the famous computer books with the animals on the covers. Andrew made the case that publishing, at least for O'Reilly and their international audience of computer geeks and wannabe-geeks, the trend is clear. More delivery of books and other content to smartphones via apps and ebooks. With the world's population skipping the infastructure of the landline telephone, more than half the world's population has a cellphone. That means that for many remote populations, they now have the only library/bookstore they need, right in their hands.

As we begin preparing for our trip to Laos, I am inspired by the opportunity to deliver medical information to places where there are no doctors. As publishers are trying to solve their own problems, perhaps the greatest victory will be for, as an example, the mother in Laos whose child has just been burned.