The keynote speaker this year was Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveller's Wife and Her Fearful Symmetry as well as a number of illustrated books, her latest of which, Raven Girl, having just been adapted into a ballet at the Royal Opera House. Niffenegger used her great sense of humour and honesty to take us through a mixture of history and personal experiences in relation to books, writing and the ever-growing digital era. Interestingly, Niffenegger held on to the eBook rights in TTW for some time before publishing under new digital imprint, Zola Books.
I personally loved Niffenegger's approach, which I found to be a brilliant antidote to the serious, overly-techie and downright miserable tone that seems to dominate whenever booky people get together and talk about 'the state of publishing'. Unfortunately Niffenegger's positive outlook on the state of the book market, that we needn't be worried about the future of books, was later dismissed by other speakers.
That said, it's not surprising. Waterstones is quickly slipping through our fingers and it feels like soon you won't be able to find a physical book on the high street. Bowker's Books & Consumers survey has pinpointed that eBook sales in certain genres (including Crime, Romance and Classics) are reaching 20% of overall sales.
While I wouldn't say I learnt anything entirely new about the state of the book market, it did confirm to me that no one has a clue what the future holds and there really isn't much point in speculating. All we do know is that the industry is changing but people are still reading.
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Other relevant posts:
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
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