GlobalLocal: New Directions in Publishing

This post originally appeared on the Frankfurt Book Fair blog. I highly recommend visiting the official blog for interesting posts from Richard Nash, Alex Hippisley-Cox, and Arun Wolf

Back in February, a publishers’ roundtable took place in New Delhi to talk about opportunities of new markets, new models, new collaborations, that could develop amid the global financial crisis. Entitled “GlobalLocal: New Directions in Publishing,” this conference included the likes of Juergen Boos, Frankfurt Book Fair director; Ajay Shukla, managing director of McGraw-Hill India; Stella Chou, managing director of China business development, HarperCollins China; and Richard Charkin, executive director, Bloomsbury Publishing.

Personally, I wish I could’ve attended this (or at least have a chance to visit New Delhi—there must be some book related festival or organization that would like to fly a poor publisher/journalist over to write up some events . . . right? hello?), but thanksfully the German Book Office New Delhi has now produced a volume collecting the transcripts of the roundtable, afterthoughts on the conference, and essays from a variety of important thinkers and publishers.

Obviously I haven’t had time to read this volume, but anyone interested in the future of publishing will definitely want to hunt down GBO New Delhi director Akshay Pathak and get a copy. It’s totally nerdy, but just reading the titles of the panels and essays has me all excited: “Independent Publishing: Challenges and Advantages,” “The Way Ahead: The Global Financial Crisis and its Impact,” “An Independent Future: Indian Publishing, Global and Local,” and several other subtitled and nonsubtitled pieces.