Last night we attended BookMachine Unplugged where a range of fantastic speakers talked us through the theme of collaboration. Starting off with Robert Paul Weston we heard about his exciting plans for digital characters for his Children’s Creature Department, followed by social butterfly Suzanne Kavanagh who reminded us of the importance of skills and people power within the publishing industry. We then heard from Paul Rhodes a publishing, gaming and bear wrestling (yes we said bear wrestling) entrepreneur who gave a fantastic example of collaborating with other industries with great success. Agent Juliet Mushens uncovered the one-on-one collaboration between agent and author and how that impacts the wider collaboration between the publisher and reader. Finally, an introduction to the new BookMachine platform by Sophie O’Rourke, a way of finding interesting people with whom to collaborate.
So what did we learn?
We’re nowhere without our skills and when we find the right people or companies to partner with we can collaborate our skills and experience to create something which is greater than the sum of its parts. With an industry which has one of the highest volumes of people in the media sector with 100,000 people, 85,000 of which are in traditional book/journals publishing, we have an amazing opportunity to drive the industry forwards using exciting combinations of skillsets.
In summary, publishing is driven by people; people are driven by passion and knowledge and this creates the perfect opportunity for innovative and effective collaboration.
Look to the people around you, what can you achieve by amalgamating your skills, your passion for publishing and your knowledge?
Inspired Selection 