PUBLISHERS’ FORUM Heralds 13th LABAF

Cross section of publishers at the maiden edition last year

Date: THURSDAY 17^TH NOVEMBER 2011

Venue: GOETHE INSTITUT, CITY HALL, LAGOS.

Theme:          
THE BOOK IN THE AGE OF THE MICROCHIP

As part of its13^th Lagos Book & Art Festival which holds from the 18^th till the 20^th of November 2011, Committee For Relevant Art (CORA) hereby announces its plans for the 2^nd Publishers’ Forum which will hold on the 17^th of November as a part of the 13^th Lagos Book & Art Festival.

The Publishers’ Forum provides a concentrated space for key publishers in Nigeria to gain critical insight into their current operations within the context of the challenges facing their industry, brainstorm on their findings and identify key steps that can be taken as individual businesses or as a collective to improve their bottom line. At CORA, we picture ourselves as midwives to the different facets of the creative industries in Nigeria, therefore what we hope to achieve through the publisher’s forum is the blossoming of the nation’s book industry.

For this year’s Publisher’s Forum, we have chosen to focus on the theme: THE BOOK IN THE AGE OF THE MICROCHIP in appreciating the vast potential that digital technologies hold for empowering publishers in developing economies like ours to dramatically scale up their businesses.

Within the four hours marked up for the business forum, we intend the participants to add value to their businesses through the intervention of key facilitators, critical feedback on their processes, input on the most challenging areas they have to deal with and useful networking.

The Publishers forum will be followed from 5pm to 6.30pm by a conversation (open to the public) tagged: “WOOING THE MASS MARKET” where two publishers will share from their current work and their future plans, by discussing a selection from their publishing list. This year, we will have two publishers discuss their efforts at publishing literary journals and what mileage the internet afforded them in their efforts. A digital display of past editions of their journals will be presented. The discussions will be brought to a close with a cocktail.

A most apt way to describe the Publishers' Forum is to call it a 'focus group' or a strategy session with key facilitators as guide. The forum is targeted at principals of publishing houses who seek to grow their market and are willing to engage in creative thinking towards identifying strategies that can make this possible for them whether within a collective or through their individual operations. Our expectation is that cogent strategies would emerge from the session which can be immediately implemented or could be built upon in future.

The Lagos Book & Art Festival is a comprehensive, four day programme of events; readings, conversations around books, art and craft displays, kiddies’ art workshops and reading sessions, book exhibitions, live music and dance. It will run from November 18 to 20 at the ground of Freedom Park, 1 Hospital Road, (Old Broad Street Prison site) Lagos Island.

The Publishers’ Forum will hold from 10am – 6.30pm on the 17th of November at the Goethe Institut, City Hall, Lagos Island, a short walk from Freedom Park.

PROGRAMME:

9am – 10am                           Registration

10am – 11am                         Session 1: Optimizing digital platforms for book editing, design and production.

11am – 12noon                     Session 2: Optimizing digital platforms for book distribution, marketing and sales.

12noon – 12:20pm                Tea Break

12:20pm – 1.20pm                 Session 3: The book in the age of the microchip

1.20pm – 2pm                                    Q&A / interactive session.

2pm – 3pm                             Lunch Break

3pm – 4pm                             Session 3: E-business opportunities for the publishing industry.

4pm – 5pm                             General discussion and wrap up.

5pm – 6.30pm                        WOOING THE MASS MARKET- Discussion between two publishers / cocktail

Facilitators:

Session 1: Bamidele Sanusi / Best Technogies

Session 2: Kazeem Muritala / Wayne & Malcolm Inc.

Session 3: Goethe Institut

Session 4: Deji Toye / The LODT

The three facilitators will strive to intervene within the following contexts:

i.               Main issues and challenges

ii.             Opportunities presented by digital technologies

iii.            Suggested strategies to adopt

While taking care to address the following key areas of concern for the industry:

1. Financing Publishing in Nigeria
2. New Technology and the publishing industry in Nigeria
3. The reading culture and impact on the publishing business in Nigeria
4. Book distribution and IP violation in the publishing industry.

Session 1 and Session 2 will explore available options for optimizing digital technologies for the production and distribution of books, Session 3 will expound further on the previous two sessions while Session 4 will take lessons learnt in the preceeding sessions and attempt to evolve a workable business strategy from them for the participating publishing houses. An interactive session will conclude the forum, allowing for some feedback and evaluation, just before the final conversation between two publishers and cocktail. Please contact the undersigned to register for the Publishers’ Forum or for more information on the 13^th Lagos Book & Art Festival.

-Ayodele Arigbabu

For: CORA Art & Cultural Foundation

Email: cora@coraartfoundation.com           phone: 08033000499