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#FutureChat recap: Your 2015 Digital Publishing Predictions

#FutureChat recap: Your 2015 Digital Publishing Predictions

Join us for a live (and usually lively) #FutureChat with The FutureBook digital community, weekly on Fridays at 4 p.m. London (GMT), 5 p.m. Rome, 11 a.m. New York, 8 a.m. Los Angeles. 

We asked, and we received.

We started with the excellent, provocative predictions of a group of invited guests. We'd asked them to give us around 50 words each on what they see ahead in digital publishing.

Among some of the strongest commentary we had was Philip Jones' estimation of the reader's place in the digital dynamic in publishing. He wrote:

What really interests me in 2015 is the reader...The reader has adapted particularly well to this new environment, showing that they are not put off by different forms, or formats, and are willing adopters of new business models, that they happily use alongside the old ones. As a sector it can often appear that we look to ourselves rather than to the end-user when we think about content creation, or the wider services we put alongside these pieces of work.

From Molly Barton, we heard about data-driven marketing.

From Piers Blofeld, about things becoming "predictable again." Odd how good that idea sounds, isn't it?

From Tom Bonnick, we heard about exploiting creative content across platforms; from Liza Daly about innovation from outside the industry. From Sara Lloyd, we heard about digital diversification and from Crystal Mahey-Morgan about YouTubers and impatient innovation-minded publishing employees jumping ship. Craig Mod had us think about Facebook as a "partial-platform for publishers."

Dave Morris prompted us to look for "an original novel (as opposed to a classic) where interactivity is integral and serves to deepend emotional involvement with the story." Richard Nash warned of Amazon's structure, its ready stack that can support new-product development. And Sophie Rochester wondered if we might see "a deceleration of digital R&D from publishers."

These and many more outlooks were followed by a strong brace of comments -- and then by our turn to #FutureChat to see what members of our digital publishing FutureBook community think might be ahead.

And even as the ghostwriting affair around Zoe Sugg's Girl Online played through, Lucy Broughton brought us a good question about whether in 2015 we could see standard celebrity memoir giving way to YouTube star turns:

 

Here are some more highlights of our #FutureChat predictions -- with our thanks to everyone who dropped by to join in. And optimism from Los Angeles: Plus:
Join us for a live (and usually lively) #FutureChat with The FutureBook digital community, weekly on Fridays at 4 p.m. London (GMT), 5 p.m. Rome, 11 a.m. New York, 8 a.m. Los Angeles. Main image - Shutterstock: Francesca Scalena