ALLi News Editor, Dan Holloway
The end of last week you won’t have failed to notice conference season is in full swing. The 75th Frankfurt Book Fair is one of the big events of the literary calendar. And capping it off was ALLi’s Self-publishing Advice Conference.
As I will be reporting next, AI was a key part of the discussion at Frankfurt. But it’s always good to remember that there is more to the news than AI. Inevitably, global events somewhat overshadowed proceedings at the fair. Publishers from several countries withdrew, and many of the keynotes placed an acknowledgement of the horrific events unfolding at their centre.
It’s a reminder that we do not, for all our conversations may suggest otherwise, live in a bubble. The real world affects us. Some also hope we can impact the real world through our words.
Another reminder of that all too real connection came thanks to Salman Rushdie’s presence, as he gave a news conference two days before the German book trade made him their Peace Laureate for the year. Rushdie’s take on literature’s ability to change the world for the better was somewhat more jaded than the climate activists who urge us to use our words to effect change. He opined that the joy of literature lies precisely in the fact that we cannot use it for change. It is, as he put it, “useless” – in the most positive sense.
One of the positives at Frankfurt was the presence of a bullish comics industry. The market is clearly booming. And at the same time as German creators were optimistic about their own future, publishers are also investing heavily in work from Japan and South Korea.
Find Out More
Find Out MoreALLi’s Self-publishing Advice conference, which ran for 24 hours across the weekend, had the theme this year of “Success Mindset for Indie Authors.”
Subjects for the masterclasses and panel sessions included everything from marketing to comedy, collaboration to campaigns.
Free livestream and catch has now ended, but you can access all the content from ALLi’s Self-publishing Advice Conferences through a six month or lifetime all access pass.
