AI, trust, audiobooks and social justice
Reflections from London Book Fair 2024
This week saw London Book Fair (LBF) take over Kensington Olympia from 12-14 March. As an outsider to the industry, this was my first book fair. It’s been a super interesting experience, and quite the change from other conferences and events I have attended. The people I met were a real highlight of the event: it’s such a supportive, friendly community and I met the nicest people through queues, sharing umbrellas and trying to get into the seminars. (The organisation of which could be improved - the main stage, where names such as Taylor Jenkins Reid and Steven Bartlett were keynotes, seated only 100 people leading to queues for hours in advance and wrapping around the entire fair.)
NB: If anyone from LBF reads this I have so many passionate suggestions I’d love to share with you!
Here are my main takeaways from the three days:
The industry is still grappling with AI, with no clear approach or strategy.
In the face of technology, publishing is questioning where it can - and should - add value. How does trust and quality stand up against scale and the ‘free stuff’?
The audiobook market is hot, with new entrants currying industry favour and the market growing through non-listener conversion. There was little to no discussion on author compensation - something that should be tackled head-on and early on.
Reading literacy and access is a social justice issue - inclusion, libraries, tackling censorship, and inspiring children are critical for society.
Key principles in technology (such as open source, network models) could translate to and revolutionise academic publishing.
Hearing authors talk about their creative process, character development and inspiration remains an absolute joy.
Read on for further detail.
The industry is still grappling with AI, with no clear approach or strategy.
Lots of fears, lots of concerns. This dominated most of the panels throughout the event, regardless of whether it was the topic of focus. It slipped into every conversation I heard, both on and off stage, and the Tech Theatre drew huge crowds.
Ricardo Franco Levi from the Federation of European Publishers (FEP), praised the introduction of the EU Parliament’s AI Act which received the final nod during LBF on 13th March. This is the first set of major regulatory ground rules, and Ricardo argued Europe continues to lead the way in making protections; ensuring copyright directive and transparency of training sources. Enforcement of this is key, and he says publishers will get a chance to come to the table on how to do so.
This is one of the top two priorities at Publishers Association (PA), where Karine Gonçalves Pansa outlined they held massive concerns over protecting copyright
Confusion remains on how to treat AI - Lawrence Njagi said the African Publishers Network is continuing to approach it ‘with gloves on our hands’.
The case was made for relabelling it ‘regenerative AI’ instead of ‘generative AI’, since it is regenerating based on existing work.
Lemn Sissay highlighted that AI poems lacked the soul of the person, an essential ingredient. You need to see the person in the poem, the life experience; otherwise what you are reading?
There was a lack of clarity in how far AI will play a role in audiobook productions - AI assisted productions seems the standard, but will AI voices and end-to-end audiobook creation be favoured moving forwards? See more in audiobook theme below
In the face of technology, publishing is questioning where it can - and should - add value. How does trust and quality stand up against scale and the ‘free stuff’?
Challenging the volume- and scale-first of tech companies, publishers are banging the drum for the quality control they bring to the process. This was a super interesting theme to see crop up again and again - and felt like an existential line of questioning. Perhaps linked to above, the emergence of big tech in the space is not something fully understood.
YS Chi, from The Association of American Publishers (AAP), said staying relevant is important in the face of something ‘shiny, but not ethically tested’. Trust seems to be the answer to this - both the adding of it and being compensated for it. ‘For centuries, reading has been about access. We now have huge access, but are forgetting to address if it’s trusted.’
Ricardo Franco Levi (FEP) agreed that trust and quality is the only response to the ‘free stuff’.
Most publishers lack a consumer facing brand - what are the risks for them in this, and where could there be opportunities? The continued reliance on other platforms and services is a risk, considering the potential ban of TikTok in the US. There wasn’t enough discussion about what publishers could be doing to build this connection with the end consumer.
Self publishing, it was agreed, shouldn’t be discouraged. It’s important for building competition, but it was felt that it should be clear that it ‘hasn’t gone through the quality control’ that the publishing industry provides.
The audiobook market is hot, with new entrants currying industry favour and the market growing through non-listener conversion.
Lots of focus on market growth and format innovation, little to no discussion on author compensation - something that should be tackled head-on and early on.
The catalogue remains very small (estimated 12m worldwide e-books vs. Spotify’s catalogue of 350k titles)
English language dominates, but Spanish is fast-growing, followed by French and Hindi
Barriers to audiobook creation remain high due to production costs, but lessons to be learned from podcasting (where industry, language and production capability has grown) and there is opportunity for AI to support with this
There is opportunity to significantly grow the market - new entrants are converting non-audiobook listeners for the first time. In the US, 53% adults now listen which is the first time it’s passed the 50% milestone. Conversely, 47% adult have therefore never listened which is unique compared to other media such as music, TV.
The demographics of listeners are changing - in the US 60% are under 45, and the fastest growing segment is children’s, where 50% now listen (via speaker boxes etc). This shows that you can capture this new market younger and hopefully retain them throughout their life.
There is a lot of interest in format experimentation - this is happening across the board with Audible, Storytel etc. There is also expansion into new categories: non fiction (with added interviews, behind the scenes), cookery, illustration, graphic novels, and classics adaptations.
How could AI help? Storytel has launched Voice Switcher - where you can choose from a selection of 3-4 AI voices over the human voice production (based on research that 90% listeners deselected a book because they didn’t like the voice). It is unclear on how far productions will leverage AI, and at what level - AI assisted or AI produced?
Spotify made a big splash at the fair, investing in a snazzy stand and sponsoring talks at the Tech Theatre. Here’s what to expect from them:
A focus on accessibility - reaching new listeners and in the way they want (via collaboration with partner devices such as games consoles, cars, fridges).
Continued discovery and personalisation - to convert new listeners and cross promote from podcasts to audiobook recommendations. Algorithmic recommendations, applied in new cross promotional ways, remain their key USP here.
Tools and data - for authors and the industry to help them create, publish and find their audience. Expect ‘Spotify for Authors’ in the near future
Audible also discussed similar focuses: driving customer value and creating an environment to support creators.
The question that wasn’t addressed - how is big tech going to address author compensation? There remains a question on transparency, credits, and whether authors will reach the level that artists are compensated for their music. I expected more debate on this at LBF.
Reading literacy and access is a social justice issue - inclusion, libraries, tackling censorship, and inspiring children are critical for society.
Jonathan Douglas from National Literacy Trust (NLT) highlighted that literacy is a social justice issue and is an important indicator to future success. It directly correlates with life expectancy - with a massive 26-year variance for males. It’s important to tackle this young: 400k children don’t have books at home today.
Accessibility for readers changes lives - Stacy Scott outlined how this needs to be built in from the beginning. Ignore it, and it will become harder to keep up with the evolving, and much needed, regulation. 95% websites today are not accessible.
Representation matters, both in stories and in your team. Judith Curr highlighted how reading a book where you see yourself is imperative to starting your reading journey, and Joseph Coelho agreed, saying how important it is to see people like yourself to spark ideas about the future. This is only achieved when you build a team that is truly a reflection of your audience, ensuring that stories are supported, published and championed.
Inspiring children is such an important step in addressing reading literacy and creating joy. Joseph Coelho delivered a masterclass in childlike wonder and fun. He spoke of how important it is to get into schools, have libraries in communities and support children from an early age. This message with mirrored on the ‘Creating a Culture of Reading for Pleasure’ panel with tips such as:
Build reading into every day - recipes, instructions, signs
Remove the pressure! Reading to your child is an act of love, not a performance
Addressing perceived stigma of reading is important - encourage any reading, in all forms and at all levels. These attitudinal barriers to reading were highlighted by Cassie Chadderton from World Book Day said stigma or judgement of what you read, perceived disapproval, or being seen to be reading below expected level prevented people form picking up a book.
Technology can support and convert non-readers (particularly in the hardest segment to crack - teenage boys). However, research from the NLT is showing that the act of e-reading is different neurologically. It’s less of a ‘deep’ reading experience compared to physical. It will be interesting to learn more about this study.
There was not enough discussion on the act of censorship, particularly with the rise of book banning globally. However, it was interesting to learn the following:
Freedom to Publish is the other top priority for Publisher’s Association, and the freedom to print and educate, without government intrusion, is very important.
Karine Gonçalves Pansa (PA) highlighted the struggle that remains in the physical distribution of books, such as in Brazil.
Ed Nawotka talked of indirect censorship methods - such as in Venezuela, where you can theoretically print, but you cannot buy the paper and ink. Other examples included the usage of taxes to ensure it was cost prohibitive.
How key principles in technology (such as open source, network models) could translate to and revolutionise academic publishing.
Networks: Strong case made by Harsh Jegadeesan on evolving journals from content repositories into networking communities where researchers can collaborate and share.
Cyber protection: There was a brief discussion on the very much under-reported cyber attack on British Library recently and the protection that’s needed.
Fraud: The industry has not yet developed the sophistication with fraud in the way financial services have. Integrity and trust must be at the heart of academic publishing.
Dissemination to the public: Can AI help with the translation of research to the general public? Effective communication is much more labour intensive and perhaps AI can help with this to increase public interest and learning, consequently increasing trust and funding.
Open access was the most interesting debate: Driving open access was agreed as important but is not yet the default across scientific communities, unlike other industries like technology. Antonia Seymour of Institute of Physics Publishing highlighted that 50% is currently open access, but more coordination in the approach is needed across markets. There was concern over first mover disadvantage - with a perceived risk in mandating data open access without consistency across other publishers to support this.
Hearing authors talk about their creative process, character development and inspiration remains an absolute joy. You can see more snippets of these conversations on our TikTok and Instagram.
I’ll leave you with a quote from Nicola Usborne at Usborne publishing:
‘Read any book you want, because any book is a good book’