Back to the Future - Comment #4

Every year after Pub U, we ask those who attended what they would like to see addressed as content for future Pub U events. It seems that this year people had the digital content bug. This comes as no surprise as the Kindle was on the horizon at the time of Pub U and many publishers were trying to wrap their arms around this nebulous idea of how digital content will change the publishing industry.

So what is ECPA doing to address this issue? First, if you haven't already decided to, you should consider attending our Executive Leadership Summit this May in Dallas, TX. We have solicited the President of the Book Industry Study Group, Michael Healy, to moderate a discussion on "DIGITAL PUBLISHING & DISTRIBUTION: STRATEGIES & EXPERIENCES FROM TRADE PUBLISHING". This will be a time to hear from representatives from the trade publishing industry about the latest trends and strategies to consider for publishing in a digital age.

In addition to this, ECPA will be mindful of the desire to address these issues as we look towards the 2008 event. Should you have any particular presenter in mind, it is not too late to float their name my way.

As a side note - ECPA has been in talks with Quality Solutions to create an ECPA Title Management Database available exclusively to ECPA members. This would allow publishers the ability to upload their title databases onto a hosted server where they could manage all of the biblio information related to their title offerings as well as create tip sheets and, with the click of a button, distribute that data to over 80 different industry partners, including Barnes & Noble, Borders, Amazon, Christian Books & More and Ingram/Spring Arbor. Their will be a monthly discounted subscription fee. Stay tuned to ECPA's press releases and other member news for more information.