"Much of the 14th China International Digital Publishing Expo – which had huge numbers of publishers and thinkers present – focused on AI. Not because it was an AI-Expo, but because China has simply got on and embraced the technology" - Nadim Sadek, Shimmr.
Paid podcasting is nowadays so much a part of the industry, that it’s hard to imagine that, as recently as 2019, many were sniggering as Morten Strunge launched Podimo with the crazy idea that consumers might hand over actual money to listen to a mere podcast.
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This hybrid approach, combining subscription and ad-supported models, is expected to provide...
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“Much of the 14th China International Digital Publishing Expo – which had huge numbers of publishers and thinkers present – focused on AI. Not because it was an AI-Expo, but because China has simply got on and embraced the technology” – Nadim Sadek, Shimmr.
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At the best of times, events like these, on the notional margins of publishing civilisation, go barely noticed, and how much more when they come at a time when all eyes are on the behemoth that is the Buchmesse.
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Most of history’s civilisations rose, flourished and fell without a book in sight, and when books finally became a thing, many books were a means to oppress and deliver destruction, not to build. “Mein Kampf”, anyone?
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FILSD23 was marred by protests and calls for a boycott, because Israel was lined up as Guest of Honour, at a time when the Palestine crisis was still daily news, not a reporting afterthought.
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Chus Pato’s works have been widely translated and published abroad, including in Argentina, Chile, Portugal, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Russia, France, and Belgium. One cannot help but notice no English-language countries make the list.
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Medellín’s festival is celebrated for its grassroots approach, attracting a diverse local audience and fostering a strong sense of community that makes the half-million footfall all the more impressive.
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Kudos to Dr Mohammed Alwan for not only embracing and promoting reading for pleasure, but also embracing and promoting technology and digital solutions.
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A record-breaking 320 submissions from 28 African countries.
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AI not to blame? Hence the deafening silence from the industry sidelines.
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75% of Nigerian kids that cannot read simple sentences. Does anyone seriously think Nigeria got to be the economic powerhouse of Africa with an illiterate workforce?
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With more access to trade content for training, LLMs can become more efficient in the trade sectors where it currently lags behind, opening up new revenue streams and potentially new and transformative concepts yet to be explored.
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Markus, that deadline is almost up. If you wish, I can get the kids at school to make you a The End Is Nigh sandwich board so you can walk the streets of Manhattan outside PRH like Bruce Willis in Die Hard Whatever-Number-It-Was, and remind everyone just how dumb you were.
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But unless teachers understand prompting they are likely to not get the best from AI and offer negative feedback, so this could backfire spectacularly. I’d like to know more about how teachers are going to be trained to use AI effectively.
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The new gatekeepers are not the publishers but the established authors looking to protect the status quo and keep the market as non-competitive as possible.
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Just who do authors think is in charge here? Traditionally, publishers do not give authors control over where their books are sold or in what format, or what else the publisher might do to maximise revenues. If we authors don’t like that, we can self-publish.
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while there is no suggestion AI is being used to replace jobs at Books, it is safe to say Apple is pivoting its attention towards AI, and Books, always a sideshow, has just become even more a sideshow than before.
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Do you have any idea how many secondary schools there are in the UK? How about 4,190, per BESA. So Penguin, two down, 4,188 to go! So far you are averaging two a year, so you could have a book-vending machine in every secondary school in the country by 2064!
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Moldova is now an independent country neighbouring Romania in the east, or a region within Romania in the west, which sounds like recipe for unrest and conflict, but historic and cultural ties seem so far to be producing a very peaceful and productive coexistence, epitomised by Bookfest Chisinau, organised under the patronage of Romania’s President Klaus Iohannis and Moldova’s President Maia Sandu.
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