Tech Forum and ebookcraft 2018 are coming up fast. We're getting excited and so are our fantastic speakers.
Speaking of speakers, we've got some more to introduce to you, including new additions for our Tech Forum panels on women in publishing, audio-first publishing, blockchain for publishing, and retailers bridging the digital divide.
At ebookcraft, we're announcing sessions about WAI-ARIA in practice and Wiley's HTML-first approach, and new panelists have been added to our OverDrive in Focus panel.
You can see the full list of speakers and sessions that have been announced so far on the Tech Forum and ebookcraft website.
There's still time to register (registration closes on March 12) so get your tickets today! If we've convinced you, but you need help convincing your boss, we've got you covered with our guide to getting your boss on board.
Tech Forum 2018 sessions and speakers
Panel: Women in Publishing
(see the previously announced panelists at the link)
Scaachi Koul is a senior writer at Buzzfeed and malcontent based in Toronto. Born and raised in Calgary, she attended the School of Journalism at Ryerson University. Before joining Buzzfeed in 2015, she worked for The Huffington Post Canada, Maclean's, Hazlitt, and freelanced for various publications including Toronto Life, The Globe and Mail, the National Post, the Toronto Star, Maisonneuve, and Canadian Business. She has also contributed to The New Yorker's "Shouts & Murmurs" column.
Bhavna Chauhan is a Senior Editor at Doubleday Canada and Appetite. Her focuses are psychological thrillers, commercial fiction, celebrity books, issue-driven narrative non-fiction, and personal memoir. She is the Canadian editor of the internationally bestselling The Couple Next Door and A Stranger in the House by Shari Lapena, as well as the upcoming books Need to Know by Karen Cleveland and The House Swap by Rebecca Fleet. She is the acquiring editor of JP Delaney’s The Girl Before, an instant bestseller, and his forthcoming thrillers, Believe Me and The Perfect Wife; YouTube personality Lilly Singh’s debut book How to Be a Bawse; I Hear She’s a Real Bitch by restaurateur Jen Agg; and, The Measure of My Powers by Jackie Kai Ellis, a memoir about food, marriage, and depression. She is currently working with Canadian Olympian Perdita Felicien on her story, and award-winning aquanaut and cave diver Jill Heinerth.
Panel: The Future will not be Silent: Audio-First Publishing
(see the previously announced panelists at the link)
Hazel Millar is the Co-publisher at Book*hug, an independent literary press based in Toronto. An avid reader, Hazel is rarely without a book. She is also the current Vice Chair of the Board of the Literary Press Group of Canada and sits on several other literary boards and advisory committees. She lives in Toronto with her husband, Jay MillAR, aka, the other half of Book*hug, their two sons, and a very cool calico cat named Tess.
Barbara Howson is a sales, licensing, and business strategist with a strong background in publishing and other media sectors. She’s worked with small to mid-size companies in Canada and the United Kingdom and has also worked as a consultant to industry organizations and government agencies. At present she is enjoying her sixth year with House of Anansi and Groundwood Books as Vice-President, Sales and Licensing.
Panel: Retailers Bridging the Digital Divide
(see the previously announced panelists at the link)
Kelly McKinnon is the co-owner of Kidsbooks, one of the largest independent children’s bookstores in North America. Kidsbooks was recently featured in The Globe and Mail article on main street businesses who have been successful in the face of global competition. Kelly points to technology as a key driver of Kidsbooks’ success.
Backlist Keywords
(see the previously announced presenters at the link)
Joshua Tallent, the Director of Outreach and Education at Firebrand Technologies, is dedicated to helping publishers around the world create better books. In addition to heading up training and outreach efforts within Firebrand, Joshua serves on multiple industry committees and working groups and teaches at publishing conferences year-round. He also leads the development of FlightDeck, the most robust EPUB quality assurance tool available.
#standardsgoals for 2018: What's new in Standards & Certification
Tom Richardson is BookNet Canada's Bibliographic Manager and friend to all ONIX producers and users.
New from BookNet Canada: BNC SalesData & Library Circulation Data and BNC SalesData
Monique Mongeon has always been fascinated with the intersection of books and technology – from her start making fansites for her favourite books, to her current role as Project Manager at BookNet Canada. Monique also teaches ebook production at Ryerson University’s Chang School. Prior to joining BookNet, Monique worked in ebook production for Penguin Random House Canada.
New from BookNet Canada: BNC CataList
Carol Gordon manages BookNet Canada's CataList project. An alumnus of both book publishing and bookselling, she is excited to be exploring new ways to share information about forthcoming books using online catalogues. Her reading list continues to grow at an alarming rate.
ebookcraft 2018 sessions and speakers
WAI-ARIA in Practice: Ebooks that are dynamic, beautiful, and accessible
Deborah Kaplan dances all over the intersection of books, technology, and accessibility. She’s the lead developer at Suberic Networks, a consulting firm that specializes in technology solutions for publishing, libraries, archives, and content management, with a focus on accessibility and user experience. Deborah is an invited expert on the W3C Publishing Working Group, and has worked as a librarian and archivist, a book reviewer at Kirkus Reviews, an accessibility trainer and programmer, and a graduate instructor of children’s literature. She consults as the accessibility expert for several open source projects. Deborah has a number of soapboxes about information accessibility, but they all boil down to this: It should be easy to make feature-rich, beautiful design coexist with usability and accessibility.
Deborah organizes her non-fiction by colour.
She knows, she knows, but it works! She swears!
HTML-First at Wiley, or, How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the DOM
Tzviya Siegman is Wiley’s Information Standards Lead. Tzviya wrote and maintained Wiley’s ebook specifications and stylesheets and serves as Wiley’s liaison to industry standards groups. She currently works in Wiley’s Platform Architecture Group, joining her interests in content structure, standards, accessibility, and linked data. Tzviya co-chairs the W3C Publishing Working Group, helping to make the web and publishing better friends.
Benjamin Young is a web, digital publishing, and open source advocate. His focus is on content and how human beings interface with it and each other around it. He is currently exploring the edges of a re-decentralized web using annotation, distributed identity, and offline-friendly web apps and extensions. Benjamin is a Solutions Architect at John Wiley & Sons where he works on the Web Annotation Working Group and Digital Publishing Interest Group at the W3C.
Oh, the Places ebooks Go: An ebook's journey from creation to circulation
(see the previously announced panelists at the link)
Maria Cipriano is a Senior Collections Specialist at the Toronto Public Library and is responsible for adult digital collections including ebooks, digital magazines, and other streaming services. She has over 25 years of collection development experience in public libraries and is a keen advocate of digital collections. Maria is also actively involved in staff training and community outreach.
Teresa Elsey is senior managing editor (digital) in the Trade division at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. She directs a group that produces and updates more than a thousand ebooks yearly, including adult fiction and nonfiction, culinary and lifestyle, YA titles, picture books, and e-only projects. She began her career in print publishing (though she likes ebooks better!) and has also worked at O’Reilly Media, Let’s Go, and Cengage.
“Everybody’s Working on the Weekend” Lunch ‘n’ Learn: Committees, working groups, and volunteerism in digital publishing
Laura Brady is an ebook developer, the principal of Brady Type, and the editor-in-chief of EPUB Secrets. She consults on workflow, tools, specifications, and production best practices. In her spare time she helps plan ebookcraft and follows the Blue Jays. She also probably tweets too much.
Teresa Elsey is senior managing editor (digital) in the Trade division at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. She directs a group that produces and updates more than a thousand ebooks yearly, including adult fiction and nonfiction, culinary and lifestyle, YA titles, picture books, and e-only projects. She began her career in print publishing (though she likes ebooks better!) and has also worked at O’Reilly Media, Let’s Go, and Cengage.
Monique Mongeon has always been fascinated with the intersection of books and technology – from her start making fansites for her favourite books, to her current role as Project Manager at BookNet Canada. Monique also teaches ebook production at Ryerson University’s Chang School. Prior to joining BookNet, Monique worked in ebook production for Penguin Random House Canada.
Joshua Tallent, the Director of Outreach and Education at Firebrand Technologies, is dedicated to helping publishers around the world create better books. In addition to heading up training and outreach efforts within Firebrand, Joshua serves on multiple industry committees and working groups and teaches at publishing conferences year-round. He also leads the development of FlightDeck, the most robust EPUB quality assurance tool available.
