Independent Publishers Guild Autumn Conference 2024

On Tuesday 17th September 2024, Troubador’s Operations Director Chloe May, Sales and Marketing Manager Jonathan White, and Editorial Assistant Issy Hill attended the Independent Publishers Guild Autumn Conference 2024, held in London. A day jam-packed with activity, Chloe summarised that 'as always, the IPG was filled with informative and useful sessions and great networking opportunities.’

The theme of this year’s conference was a simple one: getting stuff done. This all-encompassing theme aimed to encapsulate the independent publishing industry’s knack for tackling the challenges it faces and getting on with the job at hand. This concept felt particularly relevant in the current climate, with a host of thought-provoking new acts being introduced at the end of the year and an economic climate struggling into a new political age, as highlighted poignantly and amusingly by the first keynote speaker of the day, BBC Chief Economics Correspondent Dharshini David.

The second keynote speaker, former government Director of Communications Alastair Campbell, introduced a comedic but informative discussion surrounding the current political and media landscape, the future of the creative industries, and his popular podcast The Rest is Politics, which he hosts with former Conservative MP Rory Stewart, and how podcasts can be linked lucratively with the publishing industry.

A common theme across the sessions was the importance of creating of a positive work environment, touched upon by Jenny Broom and Rachel Williams, the co-founders of Magic Cat Publishing, and speaker Bruce Daisley, author of The Joy of Work. Their talks reminded businesses of the importance of creating a positive, flexible and autonomous work environment to allow workers to thrive. In the case of Magic Cat Publishing, the freedom to create the perfect work environment and work-life balance allowed the co-founders to transition to independent publishing without sacrificing family life.

But the theme of ‘getting stuff done’ expanded beyond just the walls of the publishing houses. The talk I found the most enlightening was Jason Vit’s Getting Kids Reading. Jason’s talk reiterated the link between low literacy and poverty and emphasised how reading in childhood is linked to improved academic success, employment opportunities and mental well-being. With the 2023 Annual Literacy Survey finding that only 2 in 5 children enjoy reading and only 1 in 2 are encouraged to read by parents and carers, there has never been a more poignant time to get kids reading again. Since the Covid lockdowns, it has been particularly challenging to encourage reading, as the long-term investment of reading is competing with the instant gratification, and often familiar comfort, of a phone or video game. Leading by example and reading regularly and for pleasure remains the most effective way for adults to encourage children to read.

As with the 2023 IPG conference, AI featured heavily in several of the sessions. Jonathan reported that ‘the IPG Conference this year had some excellent sessions about the practical ways AI is already able to be of benefit to the publishing industry, as well as the amazing developments that will soon be coming into the industry. All the speakers very much emphasised that in no way will these AI aids be replacing the need for human interaction during the publishing process but rather how some of the more admin aspects of the business can use this technology to speed up processes and aid accuracy within the industry.’

Jonathan also attended the session Solving Distribution Challenges. He reflected that ‘the importance of a good distribution base and setup for publishers was very much highlighted by the session on this topic. The session made us at Troubador very glad indeed that we are doing all our distribution of books, have an excellent distribution setup in place and tackled this side of our business before it became quite such an area of concern within the industry.’

Along the same lines, the theme of sustainability, with regard to both book production and distribution, also featured heavily throughout. The Tools for Sustainability session, co-presented by Jonathan Griffin, Sophie Galleymore Bird and Meryl Halls, presented opinions from publishers, printers, retailers and authors on the progress of sustainability and suggested ways the industry might look to reduce its carbon footprint. The Tree to Me Project was also discussed, which encourages authors to ask sustainability questions of their publishers. Sustainability is something we have been having lots of discussion about recently at Troubador, and though we have lowered our carbon footprint already by doing our distribution and acting sustainably inside the building, it is something we will look to explore more over the coming months.

Sustainability on the whole is something publishers will have to think about a lot more as the year draws to a close. The new Deforestation Regulation is to be implemented from the end of 2024 and applies to companies who place products including timber on the EU market or export them from the EU. Operators will need to ensure products are free of deforestation. Chloe attended the talk Metadata, the EU and Accessibility to find out more about this, reporting, ‘I found the session led by EdiTEUR (the creators of Onix – the metadata language used for transmitting information about books around the globe) on upcoming EU directives such as the Accessibility Act and the Deforestation Regulation especially useful. It helped to demystify these and gave actionable steps which helped relieve much of the anxiety.’ Troubador is glad to be getting our heads around this in advance and doing our part in improving the sustainability of the industry.