The Shaw Theatre at London’s Pullman hotel St. Pancras. Image: Shaw Theatre
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
IPG’s Conference Runs February 25 and 26
While many in our world audience see London Book Fair (March 10 to 12), Bologna Children’s Book Fair (March 31 to April 3), and Sharjah Booksellers Conference (April 7 and 8) as the next major publishing industry events on the calendar, the United Kingdom’s book business has the Independent Publishers Guild (IPG) Spring Conference coming up, February 25 and 26 at the Shaw Theatre (the Pullman Hotel London St. Pancras, 100-110 Euston Road NW12AJ).
In the current tradition of multiple keynotes, there are four planned on the first day of the IPG event, led by journalist Tim Harford on issues around data in publishing.
As the program’s organizers say, Harford is to “explore our anxieties about numbers, argue that simple skepticism isn’t enough, and offer three practical rules for acting on the statistics that swirl around the publishing industry.”
Among Harford’s most recent books is the Penguin Random House / Riverhead release The Data Detective: Ten Easy Rules To Make Sense of Statistics.
And as it happens, that focus on data might be a handy warm-up for the next round of speakers’ comments on issues in data.
While this publisher-level set of concerns around data may not be prevalent in all markets, there has been a lot of work done in markets based on the Continent relative to how hard it is to compare one nation’s publishing data to another’s. Thanks to efforts engaging the Aldus Up program and the Federation of European Publishers, efforts in harmonizing some levels and types of data have been studied to see if there are practical ways to offer multiple international markets genuinely comparative data for coherent regional results.
Following Harford’s remarks, there are opening-day keynotes planned from Bella Lacey of Granta; Karen Phillips of Sage Publishing; and Kate Wilson of Nosy Crow, give their perspectives on the state of and outlook for independent publishers, with thoughts on “hot topics including AI, finding new voices, nurturing talent, the subscription model, and the threat of US tariffs.”
Nosy Crow, as you may have noticed in our story, has a longlisted novel with the 2025 Carnegie Awards. Nosy Crow is hardly a stranger to awards, of course, but I Am Wolf by Alastair Chisholm is one of an unusual clutch of nine books in the Carnegie longlists this year that deal with youth and masculinity.
At a time when many younger men and boys are facing growing social, educational, and self-esteem challenges, it’s interesting to see so much work for this somewhat underserved part of the consumer base. More about this group of longlisted titles is here.
Speaking of the Continent, one of the sessions on the IPG program’s first day is EUDR and GPSR: with EU Laws, featuring Lisa Faratro of CPI, James Dunphy of Durnell Marketing, and Simon Pallant of Gardners.
Rakuten Kobo‘s Michael Tamblyn goes over subscription programs and how they can work for publishers as these models enjoy a kind of rebirth of interest, much as audiobooks did when cassette tapes and CDs were replaced by downloads and streaming.
Artificial intelligence, the must-have topic at publishing events again this year, is talked about by Ed Newton-Rex, who is best known in the States for leaving the vice-presidency of the audio division at Stability.ai when he became concerned about “exploiting creators” with LLMs’ use of copyrighted content without license or permission.
A composer and technologist, he also has worked with TikTok and Shapchat; founded Jukedeck in 2010; worked at ByteDance (the Chinese parent of TikTok), leading its AI music lab. The Association of American Publishers announced its support for his start-up, Fairly Trained, a response to the copyright crisis around generative AI.
Also speaking on artificial intelligence are George Walkley and Will Crook, World of Books’ Dan Mucha is to lead a discussion about online retail.
‘All About Helping Independents Find Growth’
Bridget Shine
In a quote about the coming conference, IPG’s CEO Bridget Shine says, “The IPG is all about helping independents find growth opportunities amid the many challenges that publishing faces, and our spring conference program is crammed with content to do just that.
“We can’t wait to get together for two days of inspiration and connections.”
The event page for the IPG conference is here. A fully detailed look at the program is here (PDF). Attendance is open both to members and non-members of IPG. And the first day of the conference has a ticket available for online participation.
Among speakers at the 2025 IPG Spring Conference in London, from left are Kate Wilson; Ed Newton-Rex; Tim Harford (image Penguin Random House, Fran Monks); and George Walkley
More from Publishing Perspectives on book and publishing conferences is here; more on independent publishing and publishers is here; and more on the United Kingdom is here.