Digital Publishing Summit 2023

What are the trends and tendencies in the digital book market in Europe?

This session will present some data and trends about the digital book market(s) in Europe. Enrico Turrin (Deputy Director at the Federation of European Publishers) will present the data collected by the Federation of European Publishers in its annual survey of publisher associations, focusing on the mainstream channels. In parallel and intertwined with the traditional book markets, a variety of other publishing models has emerged and vastly expanded in recent years, which often are not covered by standard book data. Analyst Rüdiger Wischenbart will offer some estimates on the scope and dynamic growth that self-publishing, community based, and direct-to-consumer have seen.

European Accessibility Act implementations checkpoint

Cristina Mussinelli (Secretary General of Fondazione LIA), Raphael Berger (Creative Director of ARCOM), and Clara Bedhome (Project Manager of ARCOM) will provide an overview of the state of the art of the implementation of the European Accessibility Act and on how the EU publishing industry is preparing to comply.

Authenticity and Counterfeit

There is growing concern in the international book markets surrounding the illegitimate (re)publication of books on online platforms. These unauthorized publications often involve deceptive practices such as false author or publisher attributions, misleading cover images, and modified title information to sell illegitimate and potentially fraudulent content. To tackle this problem, a W3C community group is actively exploring potential solutions that aim to establish trust, transparency, and enable appropriate action against these illegitimate and potentially illegal appropriations of creative works, leveraging decentralised content identifiers, such as the International Standard Content Code (ISCC), and Verifiable Credentials.

A presentation by Sebastian Posth, co-director of the ISCC Foundation .

Guided audio navigation in comics: bridging the gap between media overlays and regional navigation

In this session we’ll explore on-going efforts within the Readium community to create a new reading experience for comics, manga and webtoons.
What if comics could become accessible to everyone and work equally as well on a tablet, smartphone or on a smart speaker?

An Overview of the current status of the work on digital comics by Hadrien Gardeur (Head of Product at DeMarque) and Morten Sjøgren (Nota).

No-code Accessibility for InDesign

How can typesetters, book publishers and content creators be required to create accessible publications if they don’t have the necessary tools to make them?
This session conducted by Ken Jones (CEO of Circular Software) offers hope to those who might otherwise claim it would be a ‘disproportionate burden’ for them to fix and tidy up the mess we are left with from Adobe by helping InDesign export accessible publications without coding! Covering:

• Unique visual tools to help us prepare our InDesign files, including no-code methods for adding reading order, managing image descriptions and much more
• Custom accessibility checklists that we run on the InDesign file before output to be confident it has been well prepared
• Automatic exporting and fixups that are applied to create a much improved and more accessible reflowable and fixed layout EPUB straight from the InDesign file

Making better ebooks from InDesign

Making ebooks from InDesign is not as straightforward as it should be. This session will cover some tips and tricks for creating accessible EPUB, including:

• How to create accessible ebook content with Adobe’s InDesign
• How to use styles to full effect and work the InDesign gears
• Scripts that help with accessible conversions
• What must be cleaned up post-EPUB export from InDesign

A presentation by Laura Brady, inclusive publishing expert working with the Association of Canadian Publishers among other organizations.

L. Brady’s website

Fixed Layout Accessibility initiatives

This year, the working group dedicated to EPUB at the French Publishers Association (SNE) has started to explore the question of building accessible fixed-layout EPUBs.

If accessibility in fixed-layout EPUBs is limited, are there technical ways to go beyond? Vincent Gros (Ebooks and Data specialist at Hachette Livre), presents one of these possible initiatives, called “hybrid” EPUB, based on EPUB 3.3 core features, and discuss about pros and cons.

Digital textbooks: state and needs

Discussion on the needs of publishers on digital textbooks with Ilas Koerner-Wellershaus, Vice Chair of the IPA Educational Publishers Forum and Nathalie Pujo representative of the French Association of Educational Publishers.

Thorium Reader 2023 agenda

Thorium is a free and open-source software application for desktop operating systems (i.e. Windows, Mac, Linux). Thorium’s goal is to offer one of the best reading experiences for several mainstream and specialised publication formats, such as EPUB, DAISY, audiobooks, Divina comic books, PDF. Thorium’s user interface aims for simplicity and clarity, with a core focus on accessibility (from baseline usability to supporting a variety of screen readers and assistive technologies). Thorium integrates the LCP DRM technology which can be used for ebook purchases and time-limited library loans. Thorium provides access to OPDS content servers, with support for several authentication methods. Thorium is maintained by a small and dedicated development team, under EDRLab’s leadership. Join this presentation to hear about user-centric design, technical challenges, and Thorium’s plans for the future!

A presentation by Daniel Weck, software engineer working with EDRLab and the DAISY Consortium to build solutions in the space of digital publishing and accessible media.

Reading born accessible contents : a new journey for assistive technologies manufacturers

A lot of people with disabilities are used to read with assistive technologies : braille notetakers, DAISY Players, reading apps with screenreaders… Some of them are now committed to use Epub 3, some not. Some are now considering going through Readium LCP. But does anyone know what is an assistive technology ? What does it mean to develop and maintain devices or apps for people with disabilities ? What are the ecosystems around the world providing books, guidance and skills for those users? That what we’ll try to cover with Humanware, Bones AG and Dolphin LTD.

Discussion with Fernando Pinto da Silva (president of DAISY France), Stephan Knecht (CEO of Bones AG); Mattias Karlsson (product manager, Dolphin Access LTD) and Mathieu Paquette (product manager, Humanware).

Books in smart speakers: “Lis mon Livre” soon live.

Laurette Uzan (Association Valentin Haüy), Lindsay Tyler (CELA Library) and Ioana Gandrabur (CELA) will present accessible reading through smart speakers, presenting the “Lis mon Livre” project as well as the interest of moving from CDs to online access, showing us some examples of how people interact with a skill.

Booktracking solutions: Arianna+

Communication between book professionals is not always easy. Since 1998 Arianna + has been playing an essential role in making communication smoother. Arianna + is an integrated communication service and teleordering system that connects bookshops, distributors, publishers, wholesalers and book promoters, run by Information Editoriali.

Participants can exchange product information and messages related to the order cycle (product catalog and price lists, stock reports, orders, dispatch advices, order responses, sales reports) in standard formats, so that they can be processed automatically and unambiguously, increasing speed and decreasing errors.

The sell-out data collected from bookstores are then distributed to the entitled publishers, distributors and market research companies, and used by Arianna + for its own statistical analyses.

Arianna + Use Case is presented by Simonetta Pillon (CEO of Informazioni Editoriali) in discussion with Laurent Le Meur (Flux Numérique).

Booktracking solutions: SalesData Service

SalesData collects weekly point-of-sales data from over 2,000 retail outlets across Canada, covering an estimated 85% of the Canadian trade print book market. Noah Genner (CEO and President of BookNet Canada) will introduce us to this sales tracking tool used to investigate market trends, identify sales opportunities, plan print runs and book orders, and more.