Digital Book World Conference + Expo speakers to focus on publishing’s digital transformation

The Digital Book World Conference + Expo (DBW) has confirmed its line-up of prominent thought leaders and innovators for its 7th Annual event in New York, March 7 – 9, 2016 at the New York Hilton Midtown. DBW 2016 is the premier event for book publishers and content providers of all sizes and business models who plan to thrive now and in the future in publishing’s digital transformation. DBW 2016 features visionaries and influencers who’ll share insights about the digital-driven, global content market and how to capitalize on opportunities. The event, produced by F+W, A Content + eCommerce Company in partnership with Publishers Launch Conferences, is expected to attract more than 1,500 professionals from the book, content and technology communities.
DBW 2016 main-stage presenters include:

• Data Guy is the tech and data wizard behind the Author Earnings website, produced in conjunction with Hugh Howey who oversees Author Earnings’ data scraping and analysis. While the site’s focus is on what independent authors earn from e-book sales, Data Guy is steadily hacking his way to a deep understanding of the many statistical unknowns of Amazon’s growing but opaque marketplace, including market share for self-published and Amazon publishing titles, the effect of Kindle Unlimited, how e-book pricing affects Big Five sales, and more.

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  Scott Galloway, Professor of Marketing at NYU Stern School of Business, will present on the “Four Horsemen” of the digital era: Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google, which are all companies of great interest in the changing book publishing ecosystem. Galloway will address the overarching strategies of each of these companies, with particular insight into the role they’re likely to play in the book business as they evolve.
• Jonathan Kanter, an anti-trust attorney at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, and co-head of the firm’s technology group, will focus on “Antitrust, Tech and Book Publishing,” and how book publishers interact with the big tech platforms. He’ll explain the current anti-trust actions pending against big tech companies and their potential impact. He’ll also talk about what remedies might be applicable in the longer term to preserve the important services that big tech companies offer to consumers, while at the same time protecting the rights and businesses of content creators.

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  Jonathan Taplin Professor of Media Studies, University of Southern California, has a unified theory of content and digital change, which he’ll deliver under the heading of “Sleeping Through the Revolution” – the core premise of which is that Silicon Valley tech and libertarian values are devaluing content at the altar of digital change.
• Virginia Heffernan, an author and journalist, frequently writing at Medium and The New York Times Magazine about the intersection of technology and culture, sees the Internet as a massive, collective work of art. From Facebook and Twitter to Google and Amazon, the Internet is made and sustained by the creative contributions of its billions of inhabitants, she insists. This influx of content creators into our digital civilization has shifted irrevocably the ways professional culture-makers gain visibility and make money. Her upcoming book, Magic and Loss: The Internet as Art, will be released in June of 2016 by Simon & Schuster.

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  John Ingram, Chairman and CEO, Ingram Content Companies, has been leading the business for more than 20 years. It was recently reported that Ingram derives half of its operating margin from businesses it didn’t have or were not material even 10 years ago! Ingram will talk about introducing transformational change while simultaneously maintaining the health of core activities – a topic that everyone in book publishing needs to know more about.
• Mary Ann Naples, Senior Vice President and Publisher, Rodale Books and Rodale Wellness, is re-imagining how a modern-day book publishing division can stay relevant and competitive in an evolving publishing landscape. Naples has leveraged the power of the Rodale brands while also creating new products, platforms and revenue streams in order to drive the business forward. This includes the introduction of webinars, e-courses, and the recent launch of Rodale Wellness.

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  Rand Fishkin, co-founder of MOZ (the most widely-used SEO tool available), regularly delivers valuable information on search and SEO through his blogging. He will deliver a talk focused primarily on the two most important current topics for search optimization: local and mobile. In addition, Fishkin will do a breakout question-and-answer session at which DBW attendees can get their specific discovery challenges addressed.

Registration and program details are available at www.digitalbookworldconference.com. Or, you can e-mail digitalbookworld@fwmedia.com to ask about attending, sponsoring or exhibiting.