Guardian magazine conference
Whenever magazine makers get together, talk inevitably turns to the future. So on Sunday 7 December we’re bringing five experts together at the Guardian to discuss the next 18 months of magazine publishing from all perspectives.
It promises to be a fascinating day, and a terrific primer that will set you up for the year ahead whether you’re a writer, editor, designer or publisher.
Rob Orchard from Delayed Gratification will kick the day off with the view from the independent sector. There’s been a fantastic blooming of creativity amongst the independents in recent years, but the business side of independent publishing remains as difficult as ever. Rob will give his first-person perspective and offer his suggestions for how independents could be working better.
From the independents we’ll switch to the mainstream, with multi-award winning creative director Andy Cowles. Having spent many years on the front lines of the newsstand, including nine years as creative director and editorial development director at IPC, Andy will take a look at what the big publishers are doing to attract readers, and will point the likely future for their world-famous brands. Andy replaces Ian Birch from Hearst, who is now unable to attend.
Of course the future of any magazine ultimately depends on its ability to make money, so our next session will be led by William Rowe, CEO of Protein and publisher of both the Protein Journal and Grafik. He will speak about the differences between publishing in print and online, and how to make an editorial project pay its way.
After lunch we’ll switch to a purely digital point of view, with Jeff Campagna, founder and creative director of new online travel magazine Compass Cultura. With his firm belief that the future of magazine publishing is digital, Jeff will explain why the days of print are numbered, and will show how to cut through and connect with readers in a purely digital environment.
And finally, the day will be brought to a close by Tom Taylor, founder and CTO of Newspaper Club, the award-winning company that allows anybody to print any number of copies of their own newspapers and magazines. Tom will speak about the meeting place of print and digital, and the many opportunities it provides for innovation both now and in the future.
I’m really excited to be bringing them all together for this one-off event. Tickets are on sale now, so join us for one final Stack event at the Guardian in 2014.
