2006 Book Summit Reflections

The 2006 Book Summit was a blast to moderate. I was, once again, fortunate enough to moderate an excited, interested and informed group of industry professionals as we explored the current and future state of publishing.

My first revelation was the mix of participants at this year’s Summit. We not only had publishers, digital book printers and distributors, we had Google, Microsoft, SONY and Chris Anderson from Wired Magazine. The incredible mix of new technology companies now involved in publishing would have been unthinkable five years ago.

The discussions were different, too. My second revelation was the in-depth discussion about metadata and its role in searching for information on the Internet. Publishers, distributors and authors will benefit from understanding metadata, its role and how to capture, store and display it on the Internet. For a good example of a site considered a prototype rich with metadata, see the International Movie Database, imdb.com.

The third epiphany I had was the importance of summits such as ours. Industry leaders rarely meet to discuss issues affecting the industry in a setting where there are no scripted messages, rehearsed speeches or company propaganda. Our roundtable format allows free, unfiltered, and sometimes critical intercourse about the industry. Participants from all disciplines report they learn something new through our dialog.

Based on the feedback, my final revelation is how valuable our participants feel the Summit is. The response to the event was gratifying and overwhelmingly positive.

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