Over 100 publishing representatives attended the Australia Council’s Publishing the Story of the Future seminar.

Guests included almost every major trade publisher in Australia, a range of small-medium publishers from across the country, agents and representatives from the Australian Publishing Association, Australian Society of Authors and the Australian Booksellers Association as well as lawyers, copyright experts and academics.

The seminar, which was co-sponsored by Copyright Agency Limited, brought together key players in Australia’s publishing industry to engage with a panel of thought-provoking international and local speakers.

Veteran New York based publishing consultant Mike Shatzkin delivered a rousing key-note address that touched on a wide range of subjects, from ebook uptake, and marketing online, to “the end of general trade publishing houses”, and the path he sees for the book publisher of today to preserve a position in the internet niche world of tomorrow.

Other speakers included Elizabeth Weiss who leads the digital publishing program at Allen & Unwin; David Reiter of Brisbane micro publishing house Interactive Publications; industry strategist and cross-media researcher and educator Christy Dena and lawyer and copyright specialist Peter Banki.

Australian Author editor Angelo Loukakis as Emcee did a fine job of weaving the many complex threads into a coherent discussion throughout the day and chaired a lively panel discussion in the afternoon on copyright and intellectual property with additional guests Ross Gibb, Group Managing Director, Macmillan Publishers ANZ and Jim Alexander, CEO of Copyright Agency Limited.