Future Book Forum 2015
What is the future of books?
In a digitally-enabled, time-compressed world, there are few moments to get lost in a novel, and most factual knowledge is accessed faster and better online. Whilst sales and margins decline, publishers continue to hang on to a seemingly lost cause. More books were published last year than ever before, yet most publishers seem obsessed with page and word count, rather than content, experience and profits.
The Future Book Forum 2015, held in Munich and supported by Canon, brought together more publishing houses, more printers and other parts of the supply chain, than ever before. Over two inspiring and insightful days we explored the future of publishing, and more. And whilst it is easy to focus on reducing the costs of sustaining old mindsets, we wanted to think differently – to explore how publishers could actually grow, physically and digitally, through new approaches to a fast-changing world.
This is the report of the 2015 forum summarising key outputs and actions.