Publishing Industry Ready for Reboot as Frankfurt Gets Underway

Publishing is facing a revolution, author Mitch Joel told a rapt audience at the Frankfurt Book Fair, which opened today. Joel, a digital marketing expert and the author of Six Pixels of Separation (Grand Central), told his audience that the industry is ready for a reboot. From Publishers Weekly:

Consumers in today’s networked world are moving faster than marketers, Joel noted, and their expectations are only growing. He noted the impact of tablets and smartphones, and how innovations like Amazon Prime have turned virtually everything into an impulse buy—and suggested this was the new normal. He said the issue facing publishing was not “paper or plastic,” but about where books fall among the choices consumers make. “What are we going to do to connect readers with our authors?”

Like Stein, Joel said harnessing the power of social networks is key, and that the digital age has made the most powerful marketing tool of all “word-of-mouth” more powerful than ever before. He urged publishers to “break the mass media mindset" and take advantage of “real interactions, between real people.” In fact, cultivating “direct relationships” is critical for publishers, “because if you don’t, your authors will, and retailers will.”

The Frankfurt Book Fair is the largest book and media trade show and conference in the world with around 7500 exhibitors from over 110 countries. The official web site is here.