CBC University Recap

was lucky enough to attend the Chicago Book Clinic’s “University,” a.k.a. day-long seminar, this week.  The meeting was in Glenview and was comprised of five different seminars and lectures that had to do with publishing (in various ways).  The event was in Glenview, so I hopped the Metra, walked through a bit of suburbia (where they apparently don’t believe in sidewalks) to get there. When I arrived I was disappointed to find that several of the morning seminars had been canceled.  Instead of listening to Peter Tobin talk about green publishing, I got to hear Beth Ratway’s lecture on eduction, which I found relatively unhelpful and uninspiring.  She mostly discussed ways to improve the state of public schools, but didn’t focus on how that could be applied to publishing.  Also, I have to admit that it miffed me to hear the room unanimously agree that current students are uneducated, can’t write resumes to save their lives, and that everything was perfect anywhere between 10 to 50 years ago, when the spearker had attended school.  Knowing a lot of decent students who are still in school or recently graduated, I found this relatively offensive.

In any case, the morning continued on with a presentation from Don Lankiewicz on book adoption (a process involving educational publishers teaming up with state governments to sell their books to schools).  Then, over lunch, Lynn Hazan gave a presentation on LinkedIn.  Does anyone actually use LinkedIn?  Ms. Hazan sang its praises, but I personally don’t know of anyone who is on it.  Following her presentation was probably the highlight of the day: a panel discussion on e-books.  The panel consisted of Stan Miller, Andre Frieden, Dominique Raccah, Kathleen Herber, and Karen Barch.  I particularly enjoyed Dominique’s section of the panel/presenation, which I’m sure is no surprise to anyone.  She’s known for being charismatic and exceptionally good at navigating the industry.  Not only did she make me think that e-books are important, but she also gave me an inside look into what they’re doing at Sourcebooks that’s making them so successful.  She cited their focus on niche marketing, which is a decent idea for a web-oriented world.  She also noted that Sourcebooks puts a huge percentage of their budget into marketing.  If you’re interested in hearing her speak, I hear that there are rumors of her teaming up with Danielle Chapman for another presentation.

The day concluded with a an “Executive Panel Discussion” featuring Anne Gerth, Gary Snapp, Pat Goley, Dave Prentice, Tom Anderson, Peter Tobin, Karen Barch, Christopher Frautschi, and Doug Billups.  We mostly continued to discuss e-books, but toward the end of the panel the conversation turned to the new Espresso Book machine.  Personally, I don’t find the Espresso very exciting.  Are bookstores really that hard to come by?  Woudn’t e-books be better?  But everyone seemed to be excited about it.

I found the day to be a worthwhile experience, though I wish that the panels I had wanted to attend hadn’t been cancelled, and I wish it had been in the city of Chicago so more people in the Chicago publishing industry could attend.