E, Arab books and greening among themes in the spotlight at London Book Fair
“Digitisation will be the focus for a packed seminar line-up, including talks on why bookshops should go digital. High-profile speakers taking the stand include Penguin’s group digital director Genevieve Shore, Pan Macmillan’s head of digital publishing Sara Lloyd and Gardners sales director Bob Jackson. Green issues will also be prominent, including a talk on ‘What Publishing is Doing to and for the Environment’, hosted by Helen Fraser, Penguin m.d.” - The Bookseller on the Reed-organized London Book Fair (Wikipedia item here).
Details: This year there’ll be videocasts, such as the interview shown with Sebastian Faulks, a well-regarded U.K. novelist who among other things did a James Bond update called Devil May Care; and Arab writers will be the main theme, as will the greening ambitions of the book business in areas besides e-books. From a marketing viewpoint, the Arab angle is a smart move—given the shortage of books over there—if follow-through ensues. Perhaps the the Arab, green and E components of the show can mesh. E makes it easier to spread books around and is friendlier to the environment than P.
Related: P-Books as global warmers and P-Books: Earth menacing polluters—compared to E books, two earlier TeleBlog items. John Mark Ockerbloom correctly 
and laudably notes that p-books are just a tiny part of the environmental problems and have plenty of value, but in my opinion, there’ s more to this story. If E catches on, then people will read not just books in E, but also be more open to digital editions of newspapers and other paper replacements. No single cure exists here. It’s the combination of things, and I’m delighted to see publishers take an interest, even though it was weird to see a Publishers Weekly list of green recs without one mention of e-books, just a reference to the idea of reading documents on computer screens rather than printing them. Of course, the computer industry is hardly exemplary. Here’s to green-friendly, recyclable hardware like the XO-1, shown in the photo!
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