TOC Bologna

Nosy Crow has been publishing apps for just over a year, and shares its experience of making award-winning apps, marketing them and selling them internationally in the context of a growing market for highly interactive digital books.
Speakers: Kate Wilson

A perspective on Toys vs Tablets and how the world will react when children ultimately decide to become predominantly entertained and educated over the mobile Internet.

Over the years, publishers have faced a growing number of hardware platforms for licensing their digital content.  The separation between tablet makers and toy makers is about to collapse with certain products.  A variety of factors will set these products apart including content collection/catalog, quality user experience, aspirational brand value, price point, and the ability to remotely access content and store content in the Cloud. 

This presentation will address the rapid convergence of device types from generic Asia-sourced tablets becoming simpler and cheaper, to toys becoming smarter and more complex. Both trends have their merits.  In the end, the “market” (aka the child) will make their choice, thus leaving an eventual void from which one or the other has to recover.

The rapid onslaught of digitized content is bringing changes not just for publishers – but for book reviewers and critics as well. What are the trends for digital developments in children’s book reviews? Are trade review outlets diminishing? Which trade outlets are reviewing apps and ebooks? Who is influencing kids’ digital content purchases, and what online review platforms lead to the biggest sales? Should book publicists be reaching out to tech bloggers for reviews — and, if so – how does one find and work with bloggers who review kids’ apps and ebooks? This panel addresses the changing world of children’s content reviewing from the perspectives of trade reviewers, book bloggers, and tech bloggers, and will explore new strategies and tactics for promoting kids books, ebooks, and digital content in the new world of reviewing.

This presentation explores the digital model of Fundels, a global interactive picture book project (http://www.fundels.com)  started and supported by almost every publisher in Belgium and the Netherlands (Lannoo, Clavis, Cego, Abimo, Eenhoorn, Gottmer, Kluitman, Unieboek, …). In Fundels – the existing picture books of all those publishers (50 titles at this moment) are converted into digital, published into the general Fundels-platform in Belgium and the Netherlands and can be used as an international format for different platforms and partner-publishers worldwide. The project started three years ago with a lot of research about the potential business simulations. At this moment Fundels is the leading picture book platform for libraries, schools, child day care and speech therapists in Belgium and the Netherlands (B2B markets: each market has his own specifications: for example in the libraries (1700 at this moment) the book consists of a special RFID tag for accessing the digital content at home). In the consumer market the Fundels are offered by specific cards (in the books) which allows children to see the book on their PC, iOS or Android device. And internationally the platform has been rolled-out this month in Denmark. Next year Sweden, Italy, Finland and Korea are willing to integrate the complete business model. Due to the combination of all markets (B2B, B2C and international) and platforms (books, codes, iOS, Android, pc) the project is completely profitable and offers various revenue channels for publishers.

Going digital can be a painful process for a publishing company, requiring a lot of time, money and often internal reorganization. However, it’s a process that can no longer be avoided. Learn from a publisher who has been undergoing the digital transition for the past two years. What are the pain points? What mistakes should other publishers avoid? And most of all, what choices will get your publishing house on the digital track to success as painlessly as possible. Join Staci van Schagen of WPG Uitgevers as she shares best practices on everything from reorganizing departments to providing training for authors and illustrators.
Speakers: Staci van Schagen

In just a few years, the field of children’s apps and e-books has gone from a digital curiosity to one of the fastest-growing categories of digital content.
And of course, this rapid shift also brings new insights, questions, challenges, and opportunities for those who want to play in the sandbox.
Join Kobo’s Michael Tamblyn, zuuka’s Woody Sears, and Bookigee’s Kristen McLean for an exploration of some of the most interesting trends in this rich space, including the central role of Story; the dividing line between a kids’ app and e-book, and the interesting question of who gets to define it; and the challenges of creating content in a tablet-based world where books now go head to head with every kind of media for a young user’s attention.
Speakers: Woody Sears and Michael Tamblyn. Moderated by Marco Ghezzi

LIA – Libri Italiani Accessibili is a biennial project started in 2011, coordinated by Ediser, a service company owned by Associazione Italiana Editori (Italian Publishers Association), and funded by the Italian Ministry for Culture. Its aim is to provide a service able to increase the availability of digital publications accessible for blind and visual impaired in full respect of both authors’ and publishers’ rights, through the creation of an online catalogue of 3,000 titles. The guiding concept of the project is to make accessibility part of mainstream production and distribution flows in publishing industry. At the end of the first year of work, focused on several introductory studies, the format identified as the most suitable to achieve this objective is EPUB 3, in line with general technological evolution, and able to allow publishers to adjust the way they produce their ebooks, without radically changing it.
Speakers: Cristina Mussinelli

Deep Insights & Ideas from Across the Globe

In today’s rapidly evolving children’s marketplace where technological change, content evolution, and consumer behavior—not to mention the developmental growth of the kids themselves—are all happening at the same time, it is imperative that we look outside the walls of our industry if we are to truly understand where the children’s market is going.
Join Bookigee’s Kristen McLean as she takes us on a tour of some of the leading global trends that will affect our business and our customers for many years to come.
From the rise of the handheld market in emerging economies, to cutting-edge work on 21^st century literacies, radical shifts in the Education paradigm, and the important ways that social media are bringing the family closer together, everyone will emerge from this session with profound new insights about how our consumer market is evolving.

Speakers: Kristen Mclean

In this session, the founders of Walrus Books will talk about using EPUB3 for kids’ digital book formatting. They will share the philosophy behind EPUB3 as a digitization format, as well as demonstrate some of the enhancements one can achieve using EPUB3, and give advice to the publishers and developers who maybe wondering what formats to consider for their own digitization efforts.
Speakers: Julien Simon and Jeremie Gissero

Online Marketing – It’s a whole new world, and when it comes to launching a first-time author this new world, stoking the flames every single day to build readership and keep buzz going is a requirement. Join Lovestruck Literary co-founders Alex Fletcher and Lauren Puglia, along with author Caitlyn Duffy as they share marketing strategies to successfully launch a debut author online.
Speakers: Alexandra Fletcher, Lauren Puglia and Caitlyn Duffy