Aljaž Koprivnikar. Image: Črt Piksi
By Jarosław Adamowksi | @JaroslawAdamows
‘Transnational Initiative’
As forces of digital development continue to reshape Europe’s publishing landscape, a group of partners from across the Continent is advancing ThinkPub—an initiative designed to foster cross-border collaboration and enhanced publishing competencies.
The program’s main declared objective for the years 2024 to 2027 is “to enable the European publishing landscape to better adapt to the new realities of the digital disruption, thus making the European book sector more sustainable and creating more jobs.”
ThinkPub is co-funded by the Creative Europe program of the European Union.
Aljaž Koprivnikar is with the Ljubljana-based Slovenian publisher Beletrina, the project’s lead partner.
In speaking with Publishing Perspectives, he says, “Conceived as a transnational initiative, ThinkPub offers an ambitious framework for sector-wide renewal, rooted in capacity-building, cross-border collaboration, and the reinvention of publishing competencies.
“It brings into dialogue leading figures from publishing, technology, academia, and cultural policy, creating a European network of knowledge and innovation.”
At the heart of the project is an already-launched component referred to as a “library of digital learning objects.”
“ThinkPub,” Koprivnikar says, “will deliver lasting outcomes that help European publishers, authors, translators, and book professionals not only to navigate but also thrive in an increasingly digital and rapidly evolving cultural landscape.
“The ‘Library of Digital Learning Objects’—a foundational milestone that has already begun to reshape how knowledge is shared, accessed, and applied across the sector.”
The project is intended, he says, to be more than a repository. It’s an open-access platform envisioned as an evolving educational resource. It’s expected to curate and disseminate cutting-edge content—from case studies and market analyses to expert interviews and multimedia learning modules to meet needs of publishing professionals in Europe.
The project’s anticipated next milestone should be the rollout of a program of localized training sessions in 20 European countries. These sessions are in development and will be progressively implemented until 2027.
ThinkPub is made up of 12 organizations from across Europe, each carrying essential and distinct contributions to the project’s ambition. And that, ambition, Koprivnikar says, is a renewal of the publishing sector.
‘The Phenomenon of Post-Editing’
Monica Dimitrova, who represents Bulgaria’s Next Page Foundation, one of the project’s partners, tells Publishing Perspectives that ThinkPub offers training programs and international conferences that follow its core themes:
- Managerial innovation
- Marketing innovation
- Emerging technologies
- Translation and reading
“Without any surprise,” Dimitrova says, “the topic of artificial intelligence, how book professionals interact with it and what its impact may be in the sector appears in all of our focus fields.
“In the context of literary translation, we’re facing the phenomenon of post-editing, which has a growing demand from publishers and positions translators as editors of machine-translated texts, a role that not only is a creativity-killer, but also takes significantly more time and pays less.”
Dimitrova says that 2025 is expected to be an exciting and eventful year for ThinkPub.
“We started off with a ThinkPub.eu: Tailored Training for Publishers talk at last week’s Bologna Children’s Book Fair, making appearances at the pavilion of the Italian Publishers Association, she says.
Monica Dimitrova
“Further on, ThinkPub’s next stop will be at Readmagine in Madrid on May 26 and 27 at Casa del Lector,” the program directed by Luis González at Fundación Germán Sánchez Ruipérez. And in mid-November, ThinkPub is to host a conference on literary translation in Bulgaria’s capital Sofia.
Dimitrova says the ThinkPub event how to evaluat translation work: “Is it related to sales, visibility in the media, winning awards, presence in bookstores and libraries?
“What are the trends, developments and challenges in the European translation market? What are the publishing opportunities outside the ‘big’ markets as seen by experienced literary agents?”
More from Publishing Perspectives on Readmagine is here, more on Creative Europe is here, more on Bologna Children’s Book Fair is here, and more on publishing in Europe is here.