Embarrassingly belated report on bookcamp (I’ve taken this long just to follow up on conversations). It was a delightfully un-stuffy unconference exploring bookish and net-ish tech-ish things, last Saturday, at the new Hub space in Kings Cross. I listened to Kate Hyde and Mark Johnson from HarperCollins discussing HC’s new online communities (I particularly enjoyed being able to quiz them about the community dynamics of Authonomy). Later, I heard James Bridle explain how he’d hacked together existing web-based services to set up Bookkake, a book publishing imprint in his bedroom, heard literary agents, publishers, writers, assorted digerati and mischief-makers debating whether or not writers’ salaries were doomed, and gave a talk on the tradition of the book in which I invented a word (printy) and apparently got away with it. Slideshare version of the talk to follow.
All in all it was a splendid day. Many thanks to James Bridle, Jeremy Ettinghausen, and Russell Davies for organising it, along with the mysterious PaperCamp happening upstairs, from which I heard roars of applause around every half hour.
I’ll post more thoughts arising from the day when it’s had a chance to settle a bit.