January 25, 2012 • 1:41 pm 0
Hachette Ireland has promoted commissioning editor Ciara Doorley to the position of editorial director, effective immediately.
via Doorley new Hachette Ireland editorial director | The Bookseller.
Filed under: Irish Publishing, Books, Ciara Doorley, Commissioning, Hachette Ireland, Ireland, Publishinig
December 17, 2010 • 12:24 am 0
On Wednesday I spoke at an inspiring event, the LitNet NI Literature Forum in Belfast. It was hosted by the Arts Council Of Northern Ireland and organised by Catherine McInerney of LitNet NI.
It brings together an amazing range of voices and opinions from the literary and publishing sectors in Northern Ireland, from agents to writers, arts officers to librarians, with a good sprinkling of organisers, poets, publishers and academics.
There was a great energy in the room and while the forum is ony a few months old, it seems to have a real head of steam. My read on the future was that it was secure. It seems ready to grow beyond its original founding and beyond indeed the LitNet NI beginnings into a truly inclusive voice for the literary & commercial publishing and reading sector in Norther Ireland.
So you can see why I found it inspiring, but there’s more.
The same day and the same event was the venue for the sectoral launch of PublishingNI a new company dedicated to promoting and growing Northern Irish publishing and writing.
There’s a real energy and passion at work in Northern Irish publishing sector right now and I was excited and pleased to be part of it.
As for what I spoke about, well I started off with a dispassionate overview of how digital publishing and distribution were fundamentally reshaping the world of books and literature, changing models we have come to see as ‘the right way’ of doing things. I got a little carried away towards the end of the talk and discussed the need for a concerted response from the entire reading and writing sector to the encroachment of technology firms intent and leading the sector in a direction of their choosing. Maybe it was in the air.
But then again, maybe it was a bit intemperate, but it’s not untrue.
Eoin
Filed under: Irish Publishing, Arts Council Of Northern Ireland, Catherine McInerney, Digital Books, Digital Distribution, Digital Publishing, Irish Authors, Irish Books, Irish Publishers, LitNet NI, Northern Irish Books, Northern Irish Publishing, PublishingNI, Speaking Engagements, technology
August 16, 2010 • 11:12 am 0
Occasionally Google Alerts throws up some odd links, often old material that for some reason has been refreshed in the cache. This is one of them, and I’m very glad because I find it a fascinating attempt to pull together a very fractured discussion about digital publishing, curriculum development and ebooks in Irish Education. Hopefully, I’ll follow some of the links in the post to some more interesting discussion.
On November 6th last we asked on Twitter – “Can Irish educators explain what obstacles prevent the development of an opensource curriculum distributed on back-friendly ebooks?”
Darren Geraghty, a researcher at the Digital Enterprise Research Institute in Galway was first to answer – “I’m not an educator but I’m told book publishers want it to remain the current archaic way for obvious self-serving monetary reasons”
To which I reponded, “I’ve heard that too but wonder why, in the age of wikipedia, an opensource alternative can’t be developed? Lack of will?”
via Ebooks and opensource textbooks for Irish education – EirePreneur.
Filed under: Educational Publishing, Books, curriculum, Digital Publishing, ebooks, education, Publishing
August 13, 2010 • 11:37 am 0
The Irish Story (Green Lamp Media’s Irish history imprint) is accepting submissions for both books/ebooks and articles.
The Irish Story is a digital first publisher. Getting the online magazine side of the site running has been my priority for the last few months, thanks to some wonderful contributors it’s doing pretty nicely but now it’s time to open the door to submissions from everyone. So follow the link if you are interested, and get in touch.
via Submissions | The Irish Story.
Filed under: Irish Publishing, Books, digital first, Digital Publishing, ebooks, Irish History
April 28, 2010 • 6:46 pm 3
Others have written decent summaries on what happened at Media 2020, a conference on the future of media in Ireland that was run by Media Contact in Croke Park Conference Centre yesterday. Blathnaid Healy has a blog summary using Twitter hastags [clever methinks] and Fin O’Reilly has an interesting round-up too. I wanted to add some thoughts on three things, one that struck me while I was listening to speakers and the others that became obvious as I digested the event.
we are behind our competitors
The first thought is that we are quite a ways behind our competitors. This became obvious when BBC Backstage producer Ian Forrester (@cubicgarden) spoke. He had tried just about everything Irish media companies were thinking of or had just launched.
This came to a comical head when one of the mythic future techs mentioned, QR Codes, came up for discussion on a panel. He mentioned an experiment that the BBC had done in a zoo using, QR Codes, and almost casually mentioned that it was three years ago. I had a good laugh at that. Matt Locke (@mattlock) from Channel Four hit some similar notes too as did Jonathon Moore (@moorej) from Guardian Media.
The import of this was obvious to me. Ireland is behind other countries in digital change. As the world becomes more digital, our competitors become more global. Irish media companies need to start experimenting quickly and following the lessons learned elsewhere. They have an opportunity to jump ahead but I’d caution them to wait just a moment before they do.
no-one seems to have a coherent strategy
It was something of a relief coming from a seemingly rudderless publishing industry, to see that pretty much all content and media firms are as clueless about the future as publishers are. They are all distracted by the shiny toys, all entranced by the lure of easy profits in apps and downloads and all besotted with copyright protection and forcing the reader or the advertiser to adapt to their advantage.
The BBC, if I read their thinking correctly, at least seemed content to let innovation find a way forward but were not pushing for that to happen any time soon, The Guardian’s vaunted digital plan is at least clear, but I’m not certain it offers much more than a hope that their gamble on openness will be rewarded. They at least have not flip-flopped from tactic to tactics in the hope of stumbling upon a strategy by accident as others have.
It seems to me that following the trend is not the way forward. So experimentation is definitely a good idea, but with clear purpose and forceful reasoning.
where was book publishing?
There was not one speaker from book publishing and looking down the list of attendees, the closest one gets to a book publisher was me, Eason who had a representative and one or two PR Agencies that have been known to handle book publicity.
On the one hand it is a shame that the book publishers did not see the need to attend and on the other it says a lot about the perception of book publishing in Ireland that the organisers felt no need to include someone to speak to that market.
While much of the day did not specifically mention or reference books, there was so much potential on display for creators of quality content and new ways of thinking about content that not attending seems to me to have been a poor choice for book publishers.
final thoughts
I enjoyed the conference enormously and came away feeling refreshed and happy that there were people thinking deeply about digital change in Ireland, surprised that so many people hadn’t read The Cluetrain Manifesto and impressed by the openness to social media at the Abbey Theatre (@abbeytheatre) as traditional an icon of Ireland as they come.
Filed under: Business, Digital, Future of Media, Future of Publishing, Ireland, Irish Publishing, Publishing
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