Future-Proof Your Publishing: Expansion, Innovation, and Industry Outlook

About the event

As part of the Northern Fiction Alliance's efforts to advance the skills of our membership, we launch our 2nd 2023 collaboration with the Publishers Association. We will be looking at a range of areas which our members are looking to grow their skills within, and expand their knowledge.

This event will take place online, on Zoom, and will be free to any members of the Northern Fiction Alliance and the Publishers Association. External publishers and individuals are welcome to join for a fee.

10-00am-11.00am North American Distribution (Simon Littlewood)

Learn best practices for distributing your books in the lucrative US and Canadian markets.

11.00am-12.00pm Maximising the potential of your audio IP (with Jon Watt of Bonnier Books)

Get the scoop on producing and marketing audiobooks to expand your readership.

12.00pm-1.00pm Lunch

1.00pm-2.00pm Online Marketing (Gemma Rostill, Digital Marketing Strategist from BookMachine)

Tools for online promotion and identifying winning digital marketing strategies

2.00pm-3.00pm A Year in Publishing (Susan Pinkney, PA)

Using the Publishers’ Association report of 2022, Susan will outline market trends

Speaker Biographies:

North American Distribution (Simon Littlewood)

Now an adviser, consultant and coach to a range of international book industry companies and government organisations, Simon has held positions in trade, academic and professional, educational, and illustrated publishing in the UK for over 30 years. A member of Macmillan’s Graduate Recruitment Scheme, where he gained experience of sales, marketing and editorial management both at home and overseas, he was also a founder director of Pan Macmillan South Africa. He later took senior roles at Phaidon Press and Headline Book Publishing before becoming International Director of The Random House Group (now part of Penguin Random House) in 1997, a post he held until 2014. During successive phases of expansion at Random House he oversaw strategic developments in Europe and East Asia as well as leading the start-up of Random House India in New Delhi. As a director of Random House South Africa he played a key role in the establishment of its local publishing list Umuzi, introducing the project in person to Nelson Mandela; and under his stewardship Random House won the British Book Award for Export in three successive years from 2005 to 2007. From 2009 to 2011 Simon was Chair of the UK Publishers Association’s International Board, leading copyright protection campaigns jointly with the PA’s International Director. He has been closely involved in publishing education for many years, giving seminars on a range of courses, and sitting on the Industry Advisory Board of the Oxford International Centre for Publishing Studies. Since 2014 he has represented the UK PA on the Executive of the Federation of European Publishers in Brussels, and from 2014 to 2019 he fulfilled the same role at the International Publishers Association in Geneva. Simon is Chair of Trustees of The Orchestra of the Swan in Warwick, and of The Oxford Bach Soloists, and lives in Oxford.

Online Marketing (Gemma Rostill, Digital Marketing Strategist from BookMachine)

Gemma has been marketing books for 20 years, starting out in audio at BBC Audiobooks, to small children's indie publisher, Chicken House and eventually to Penguin Random House Children's as their Head of Marketing, leading on campaigns for authors such as John Green, Terry Pratchett and Philip Pullman.

Now a Digital Marketing Strategist at BookMachine, Gemma has clients ranging across adult and children's trade publishing in the UK and internationally, as well as in the education sector.

Maximising the potential of your audio IP (with Jon Watt of Bonnier Books)

Jon Watt is Trade Audio & Business Development Director at Bonnier Books UK where he has evolved the company’s audiobook and podcast strategy and overseen the rapid expansion of the division since 2017. He is also Chair of the Audio Publishers Group, part of the Publishers Association