Has digital publishing changed everything? as it happened

The digital publishing boom of the last few years has changed the book business for ever, or has it? As a three-day conference began to debate 'literary values in a digital age', we reported the views of editors, activists, writers, doubters and digital pioneers

Here is our live coverage as it happened. The conference continues through the weekend and you can follow it on Twitter through #TLC14. Here is the programme

2.46pm BST

Hello, Claire here. We're going to wrap up this live blog now, though the conference continues through the weekend and you can keep up with it on twitter through #TLC14.

Highlights will include bloggers Dovegreyreader and Readysteadybook talking with writer and critic Sam Leith and Paul Blezard on Saturday at 2.35pm. You can read Readysteadybook's (aka Mark Thwaite) pre-conference provocation about the disappointments of literary blogging here.

2.29pm BST

General debate around the relationship between writers and publishers. Out of 300 published books, we hope one will sell, says Pringle jokingly or not?

Accruing experience as a writer going through publishing relationships - better defining what you need from them @RebeccaAbrams2 #TLC14

@alexandrapring: Sales of Khaled Husseini's new book were 50% in Ebook but for others it's very small. In US ebooks have plateaued. #TLC14

2.17pm BST

"Self-publishing allows people to progress artistically. It removes the frustration of constantly sending work out and wondering if it's being read. It allows you to move on", says Baverstock. She then clarifies that she believes it can be useful to print out only a few copies of early manuscripts as a test, before actually self-publishing en masse.

2.14pm BST

From the floor: aspiring writers would have no problems with gatekeepers if they could get through the gate #TLC14. Is it harder than ever?

Abrams: "The gate is getting narrower and narrower. How do you find the gatekeepers?"

2.05pm BST

Baverstock: "Publishers have a range of writing talent, but decisions are made depending on how promotable a work is."

Pringle says this is a sweeping generalisation: "Quality is the beginning, middle and end of why we publish a book. You can't expect all your colleagues or the world to love the book as much as you do. Personal taste has a lot to do with it... But promotability is an added bonus, not the defining factor."

2.01pm BST

Squires asks: the advantage of self-publishing is that the gate is always open, but what are the Virtues of the gatekeeping process?

Baverstock shares her thoughts as a reader: Books are so cheap that my time matters more than my money.

1.56pm BST

Baverstock says the industry, en-masse, is very author unfriendly. She explains that she experimented at the London Book Fair with different badges. The one that caused most averted eyes was "author".

Rebecca Abrams: One thing authors do exchange is awful publicist stories. Seldom a satisfying relationship. #TLC14

1.50pm BST

Baverstock on social media: "Twitter is quite a writerly media it's all about writers trying to shape sentences".

In self-publishing meetings, she says, there is a sharing that is very unusual among traditional authors. "A very common thing amongst authors is jealousy. Self-published authors get an energy from other people's achievements that is quite admirable."

1.42pm BST

Alison Baverstock says:

When well done, the role of the publisher is absolutely invisible and that leads to authors severely underestimating the skill of the publisher." She mentions phrases like: "All you do is press a few buttons." The self-publishing revolution, in that sense, "has helped authors understand how hard editing and publishing is, and how it works."

RT @ReadHead89: Publishing done well is invisible says @alisonbav. Be careful not to equate invisibility w lack of hard work + skill #TLC14

Self-publishing often does not mean no editor. @alisonbav research shows large proportion of writers working with editor. #TLC14

1.36pm BST

Alexandra Pringle, who has worked for Bloombury for 15 years, says:

"Editors put in so much more than 9 to 5. You are investing your emotions, imagination, creativity. Also, you have to look after your authors, but your company as well. You have this push and this pull sometimes you can't be as frank as you want to be with your author."

Pringle: Agent can have continuity because only needs to have loyalty to author, but publisher has to have loyalty to company as well #TLC14

Rebecca Abrams with @alisonbav @AlexandraPring & Claire Squires fab, warm talk about author-pub relationship #TLC14 pic.twitter.com/84L21ykGv1

1.27pm BST

We start the session with some great passages about the figure of the publisher:

Afternoon #TLC14 Claire Squires reading vintage advice from The Business of Publishing by Charles Campbell: "The publisher is a busy man".

'I'm a thwarted monogamist' @RebeccaAbrams2 (4 editors for one novel) #TLC14.

"Pick an old editor & they retire. Pick a young one & they're busy hopping between publishers advancing their career" Rebecca Abrams #TLC14

1.21pm BST

TLC director Rebbecca Swift introduces what the panel will tackle:

"In the self-publishing environment, where you're without the agent or publisher, where does that leave the writer, and is that relationship missed? Not just its practical advantages but also its emotional and personal components. If you don't have an editorial relationship challenging you to be your best, are you being you best? And how do you know if you are?"

1.18pm BST

We're back and ready to attend the 'Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall' panel. We'll hear from Claire Squires (Professor of Publishing, Stirling University), will explore the author-publisher relationship, with Alexandra Pringle (Bloombury), Alison Baverstock(Publishing, Kingston University), and Rebecca Abrams (award winning author and journalist), who are going to debate how the digital revolution has, arguably, given more power back to the author, who now has the choice to "go it alone".

12.16pm BST

An audience member asks the speakers to reply, in one sentence, to these two questions: what are they most excited about and what are they most scared about.

12.04pm BST

There has been an interesting debate about literary fiction and how to measure it.

So literary fiction doesn't sell so well via self-publishing right now. But are those authors trying hard enough in that space? #TLC14

'The important thing about poetry publishing is to lose as little money as possible'TS Eliot dragged into the literary fiction debate #TLC14

12.03pm BST

A member of the audience asks: is there any room for artistry, or is it all about commercial fiction? Page says artistry and creativity are implicit in any publishing: "without them, we have no books anyway".

11.48am BST

And here is Cory Doctorow's keynote speech in full.

11.46am BST

Here's our news piece detailing the data presented by Nielsen this morning: Self-publishing boom lifts sales by 79% in a year

11.41am BST

A couple of great moments have just happened.

Page: "Editors in big companies are driving a Harley, but it's not theirs. We're more in the Vespa territory. But it's our Vespa."

#TLC14 FYI. indie authors sell by language not territory. 140+ countries available through Kobo, Amazon KDP, iBooks, Nook

11.38am BST

We raise this question about new formats from DanHolloway:

A question for the lovely Diego - it seems to me that what is truly revolutionary about writing in the digital age is the exploration of different formats, much of which happens on social sites like tumblr or facilitating sites like New Hive or sharing sites like Scribd. Self-publishing platforms like Kobo, Nook, Smashwords or KDP at the moment do a good job of bringing writers who are wedded to traditional formats to new readers but I'm struggling to see what they are doing to keep up with this new wave of writers taking literature in different directions, so it seems as though they have an interest in wedding themselves to a very traditional notion of what a book is. How do you at Kobo see yourselves tapping into the likes of gifs, memes and interactive e-chapbooks? What are you doing to keep abreast of the way writing itself is changing?

Content experiment is costly. The environment isn't yet liberated enough to distribute alternative format content widely @stephenpub #TLC14

11.27am BST

We bring up one of the issues we've encountered around the Guardian Self-published book of the month: writers spending so much time in self-promotion that they're left with not that much time for writing and often, the best writers aren't the best marketers, and vice versa. How does a really good writer break through?

Marano says: The best promotion is your writing. "This is, again, about flexibility: what is success? We always think of big numbers, but self-publishing has a big backbone of good writers."

11.15am BST

Diego Marano, of Kobo Writing Life, is speaking:

"What has happened, in one word, is technology". There used to be all kinds of gatekeepers, he says but now, "as an author the creator and owner of your copy you can get in touch with customers". The key word for Marano is flexibilty: "Publishers want to keep doing things the way they've always done them. But that isn't possible any longer. It's not all about paper versus ebook; there are many reading possibilities."

11.10am BST

Faber began 1925, Page says: "Faber was a brewer, but his wife hated the smell of beer". It turns out that he was also a poet, and he decided to explore that, creating a community of writers and artists. "Publishers are service businesses, really", he adds. The challenge now, in front of self-publishing, is to make books that people desire as objects.

"The music and the books industry have both been caught in a misunderstanding: that people bought the object for its intrinsic material value. But the object itself doesn't have much value without the reading." Now, you get to make the objects more beautiful, which is something publishers are exploring, he explains. "Publishing in the last 20 years has become all about trade but that has been broken by the internet."

11.03am BST

James Gill, of United Agents, says the last 12 months can be characterised by a "narrowing" of the market, the channels, the types of books, ambitions and expectations. "We have been asked to buy into a narrative of 'big publishing'. The game hasn't changed. Let's get back to basics," he said.

Now over to Stephen Page, CEO of Faber & Faber, who wrote this piece on the subject for the Guardian a couple of years ago.

10.55am BST

Here's a very informative summary from Nielsen

All you need to know about UK eBook sales, in only one slide, thanks to @Nielsen and @TLCUK !! #TLC14 pic.twitter.com/9tDy1AkWn0

10.47am BST

How do readers discover self-published books amid the ever-growing tide of titles? Mainly through browsing online, as well as following previously-read authors.

#TLC14 price & blurb critical for discovery for selfpub books. But fast growing is series. Write for the long term! pic.twitter.com/CxmXJxiDhj

10.41am BST

Breaking down the data, print sales fell by 10%, ebooks grew by 20% and purchases of books by self-published authors rose by a significant 79% last year:

Steve Bohme, Nielsen Book: In 2013 sale of printed books fell by 10% but ebooks rose by 20% and self-published books by 79% #TL14

#TLC14 spread of genre sales in books incl self published from Nielsen pic.twitter.com/Vu9NvGuPZN

10.33am BST

The first numbers are in: 323 million books were bought in the UK in 2013 (for which a total of 2185 million pounds were spent). Overall, consumer sales have remained flat (without counting Fifty Shades of Grey), says Steve Bohme from Nielsen Book.

Audible gasps when Steve Bohme says 323m books bought in UK in 2013 #TLC14. Not a shrinking market then

UK book consumer sales have remained flat over the last year. Print down by 10%. EBooks up by 20% #TLC14 pic.twitter.com/HcgEDsUzC5

10.31am BST

Now over to an industry snapshot from Nielsen Book, who will present data on e-books and self-publishing extracted from their survey.

10.29am BST

Doctorow has just finished his keynote we will post the audio of the full speech later in the day. His talk was full of fascinating insights into the digital publishing industry and advice for writers and artists.

Remember to untick the DRM box when you #selfpublish Most platforms have it defaulted. @doctorow warns indies (My books have no DRM) #TLC14

10.25am BST

yeaster asked about France cracking down on territorial rights:

It is vastly going to improve the standard of writing, Whatever is published and dumped in a bookshop will not sell anymore. Bookstores are beginning to end. Tomorrow many publishing companies too will disappear. Readers will make more informed choices through ebooks. A book they like they may also buy in print or in audio. People are reading more words per day than ever, due to social media and other reasons. So readership too will improve with writing.
France is making efforts to dissuade digital books to protect the publishing industry. It is another French folly. Literary world is going beyond of the control of the mafia called government. Orwell was wrong here. All the middlemen between a writer and a reader are going to disappear.

10.17am BST

More on censorship and freedom of information:

Doctorow explaining 'ratting': 100 arrested in last month for it - hacking into IDs and exploiting? Mainly sex industry but not only

10.11am BST

Doctorow says that as an artist, he is thankful every day for his ability to make a living from his writing, but "if the choice is between free specch free from surveilance, censorship, control and my ability to mke money from telling fairy tales, I'll find a real job." Among laughs from the audience, he insists: "I value a just world for my daughter more than I value my right to tell stories for a living."

10.09am BST

Doctorow's third law is: information doesn't want to be free but people do.

Doctorow: Information doesn't want anything more from us than we stop anthropomorphising it #TLC14

10.04am BST

Doctorow is talking about the Amazon-Hachette stand-off and digital rights management.

Doctorow: Hachette could play harder ball by creating their own app for selling books, but they are shackled by DRM

9.54am BST

Good morning! We're here in sunny London, ready to bring you all the developments from The Literary Consultancy's Writing in a Digital Age conference. Cory Doctorow just started his keynote

So thrilled to finally see @doctorow speak at #tlc14 @TLCUK Talking about the evils of DRM pic.twitter.com/vovVyb7Po5

8.17pm BST

Hello everyone, and welcome to the live blog where we will cover the first day of the conference Literary values in the digital age, now in its third year. We will follow the event minute by minute and bring you video and audio content about the future of books. This year's conference, organised by The Literary Consultancy, will be tackling the latest changes in the books trade, with particular focus on the exponential rise of self-publishing and the mixed fortunes of the e-book.

In the meantime, you can:

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