Wed 28 March 2012 at 4.30 pm

Digital Futures - Oxford Literary Festival

Oxford Literary Festival

Wednesday 28 March, 6.30 pm

Taking Place: Oxford Literary Festival

Last Christmas in the UK around one million ebook readers and half a million tablet computers were given as presents. Publishers are responding by producing apps and ebooks, some of which have already become bestsellers. What is the digital future for the book in a world where the expectations of both authors and readers are changing fast? A panel of experts give their views on the evolving digital landscape in publishing.

The Chair is Angus Phillips, Director of the Oxford International Centre for Publishing Studies at Oxford Brookes University. His books include Inside Book Publishing (with Giles Clark) and The Future of the Book in the Digital Age (edited with Bill Cope). He is the Editor-in-Chief of the premier publishing journal Logos. He has degrees from Oxford and Warwick universities and before joining Oxford Brookes he ran a trade and reference list at Oxford University Press. He has been a judge for the Bookseller industry awards for the last three years.

Michael Bhaskar is Digital Publishing Director at leading independent publisher Profile Books. He is responsible for spearheading their digital strategy, their ebook program, web presences, social media and digital business development in creating new products and platforms. Over the past few years Michael has written and talked extensively on the topic of digital publishing.  He has worked as Digital Editor at Pan Macmillan, at the literary agency Rogers, Coleridge and White, reviewed books for The Daily Telegraph, worked for an economics research firm, and builds websites like quikqr.com, a barcode generator. Michael has a degree in English Literature from the University of Oxford and was British Council Young Creative Entrepreneur 2011. He is on Twitter as @ajaxlogos.

Henry Volans is Head of Digital Publishing, Faber & Faber, where he has produced successful apps such as Solar System and The Waste Land. He joined Canongate in its Edinburgh office from Cambridge University. He moved to London (and Faber) in October 2003 as a non-fiction editorial assistant, before becoming a commissioning editor for non-fiction, a position which then morphed into a digital role ‘at a time when people didn’t know what that meant’.

Kate Wilson is a founder and Managing Director of Nosy Crow, a new children’s publishing company publishing print and ebooks for 0-12 year olds and highly interactive and multi-award-winning storybook apps for children from 2 to 7. The company published its first books and apps in 2011, and was shortlisted for four Independent Publishers Guild awards. Kate won the Mumpreneur Inspiring Business Mum of the Year award in 2011.  Before setting up Nosy Crow, Kate started her career in international rights, before going on to run Macmillan Children’s Books and Scholastic UK Ltd.

To buy tickets for the event, please visit:

http://oxfordliteraryfestival.org/events/detail/digital-futures