The Digital Book World conference has been one of the only events in the United States that exclusively focused on digital publishing and eBooks. It used to be relevant three or four years ago when everyone was still trying to wrap their heads around self-publishing and best practices for EPUB creation. This sort of thing is commonplace now and all sorts of events now have their own digital tracks. Everyone from the Romance Writers of America to the American Library Association and Book Expo America all have their own areas where digital publishers and startups reside, digital is the new norm. Digital Book World has been on the decline for many years and fewer people attend the events. This has resulted in F&W Media washing their hands clean of organizing the event every year and they have just sold the rights to Score Publishing, producer of the iBooks Author Conference.
Score Publishing is known for interactive content creation, hosting annual conferences for digital content creators, and providing training resources. Score Publishing is perhaps best known for VoiceFirst.FM, a media network centered around voice technology such as Amazon’s Alexa, Google’s Assistant, and Apple’s Siri. Shows such as This Week In Voice and The VoiceFirst Roundtable are listened to by tens of thousands of technology professionals in over 46 countries worldwide.
Score Publishing said the first DBW conference under its ownership will take place October 2-4, 2018 in Nashville, around the time the company’s iBA conference is usually held. “The iBooks Author Conference will indeed be rolled into Digital Book World in ways that serve that community well and allow some of the interesting and unique things that people are doing with iBA to become more known.”
In an interview with Talking New Media CEO Bradley Metrock elaborated what we can expect from the Digital Book World of tomorrow. “Digital Book World has a rich legacy of influence and impact. We will be making a variety of changes that will seek to build on this foundation of success. In the weeks and months to come, we will be reaching out far and wide to partner with anyone and everyone we believe has value to the vast community of publishers. Expect to see some surprising and valuable alliances as we re-tool DBW.”
“Publishers right now are trying to decipher how best to bring existing content into a world where people interact with computers with their voice first, and keyboards and screens second. Amidst a raft of technologies impacting old media and new media which we’ll explore at Digital Book World, this sea change to voice computing – yes, led by Amazon – will sit front and center.”
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
