At the 2019 FuturePublish conference in Berlin. Image: Literaturtest
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
A Two-Day Digital Conference
As last year, Berlin’s upcoming FuturePublish program will once more be rendered digitally, and the 2022 edition is set for Thursday and Friday (February 10 and 11). A popular element, the Deutscher Buchtrailer Awards is back, with a vote underway for the best book trailer from a shortlist of four.
The program is presented annually by Literaturtest GmbH, a public relations and marketing firm specialized in book and publishing-house publicity, created in Berlin in 2000 by Roland Große Holtforth and Mathias Voigt. It’s worth noting that the firm also produces book trailers.
This year is the seventh in which the company has staged an edition of the FuturePublish conference.
There are four shortlisted book trailers in contention:
- Die Bake (The Beacon) by Brandon Q. Morris (Belle Époque)
- Die Endzeit-Eva (The Eve of End Times) by Julia Schneider (zu Klampen Verlag)
- Frei Day (Free Day) by Margret Rasfeld, )Oekom Verlag)
- Prison: T.A.P.E.R by Pascal Ringstahl, Tredition Verlag
Jurors in the 2022 competition are:
- Detlef Bluhm
- Wolfgang Mueller
- Literaturtest’s Mathias Voigt
- Yvonne de Andrés
- Lennart Schaefer
- Jördis-Beatrix Schmid-Meil
A detail from the book trailer for ‘Prison T.A.P.E.R.’ Image: Deutsche Buchtrailer Award
Highlights, Thursday, February 10
Starting at 9 a.m. CET / 8 a.m. GMT / 3 a.m. ET
- Human rights advocate Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger gives a keynote on “attitude and tolerance instead of agitation and hatred in social and political debates”
- The opening sequence on Thursday also includes comments from Peter Claus vom Cleff, president of the Federation of European Publishers and, as of January 1, managing director of the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels, Germany’s publishers and booksellers association
- Anya Pieper will propose that companies should promote ‘neurological diversity” in the workplace
- A panel with Stephen Schierke, Iris Hunscheid, and Thilo Schmid will look at publishers’ economic realities and questions of book prices for sustainability
- Ralph Winkler and Gesa Schoening will look at data analysis from readers’ behavior
- Apparently still exploring at this late date “how digital transformation can succeed in the publising industry,” Simon Biallowons and Philip Lindinger will discuss “cultural change 4.0”
- Gregory Pchalek is to discuss “customer loyalty 2.0,” which refers to Pchalek’s understanding of “when books become interactive platforms”
- A “First Aid Kit of Innovation” with Bookwire’s Jens Klinglehoffer, the Börsenverein’s Karin Schmidt-Friderichs and vom Cleff, with Herman Eckel of Tolino Media
- Eckel is also here in a session called “Digitization for Dummies: Ideas and Impulses for a Better Workflow”
The presentation of the German Book Trailer awards is also on Thursday, at 3:15 p.m. CET, followed by authors’ presentations and music of Blindsmyth (you may know his December album release Hack Into Your Soul). A new album, All That Fiberglass, releases later this month.
A detail from the shortlisted book trailer for ‘Die Endzeit-Eva.’ Image: Deutsche Buchtrailer Award
Highlights, Friday, February 11
Starting at 9:30 a.m. CET / 8:30 a.m. GMT / 3:30 a.m. ET
Friday’s program opens with Okke Schlueter talking about
- The Börsenverein’s start-up accelerator program familiar to Publishing Perspectives readers, Contentshift, is the focus of a presentation by Media University’s Okke Schlueter
- Simone Stertz describes “microlearning” in a workshop
- Ben Kohz and Stephanie Long have a presentation called “What AI Can Learn From Book People”
- Haeme Ulrich talks about navigating uncertain times, using as a jumping-off point the proverb, “When the wind of change blows, some build walls and others build windmills”
- Herman Eckel (Tolino Media) is back to speak with Stephanie Herr, Carmen Udina, and Roland Grosse Holtforth about the value of digital collaboration—yes, including Zooming
- Beate Kuckertz, Gina Kacher, and Julius Mittenzwei speak on what makes cooperation go well between a publisher and a service provider
- Mittenzwei is also here with Birgit Hagmann in a talk about direct sales
- Matabooks’ Kay Hedrich speaks on “How Practical Sustainability Works”
- And the day is tied up in a conversation with Holtforth, Ehrhardt Heinold, Eckel, and Voigt based on topics that attendees will have signaled they’re interested in a pre-conference survey
Interspersed with presentations, there are “Book Industry Speed-Dating” sessions, “Icebreaker Events,” and a “Small Yoga Break” to help attendees through what are a couple of long digital days, with Thursday’s networking starting at 5:30 p.m. CET and Friday’s last session ending at 3 p.m. CET.
Tickets, at €99 (US$113) plus VAT, are available here.
At the 2018 edition of FuturePublish in Berlin. Image: Literaturtest
More from Publishing Perspectives on Germany is here, more on FuturePublish is here, and more on international publishing conference events is here.
More from us on the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on books and publishing is here.
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