The Literary Platform Live: the Importance of Research and Development in Publishing

10:30 to 11:30 a.m.
Westend II

Inspired by the online magazine, “The Literary Platform,” this panel will discuss the importance of investing in research and development when venturing into the world of digital publishing. The panel will examine a number of experimental publishing ventures, examining what they seem to be doing right — and what doesn’t seem to be working so well — and give advice to publishers looking to go into this brave new world of digital.

The Speakers

Sophie Rochester is founder of The Literary Platform. She worked for five years at 4th Estate and Jonathan Cape (Random House) before moving to the digital agency GT London in 2000. In 2002, she joined Colman Getty working for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction and the Guardian Hay Festival. Since 2007 she has worked as an independent literary consultant and in 2010 founded The Literary Platform, a website dedicated to exploring new platforms for literature.

Kate Pullinger writes both books and digital fiction. Her new novel,’The Mistress of Nothing’ won Canada’s Governor-General Award for Literary Fiction and will be published by Simon & Schuster in the US in 2011; Her prize-winning digital fiction projects Inanimate Alice and Flight Paths: A Networked Novel have reached audiences around the world.






Richard Nash ran Soft Skull Press, now an imprint of Counterpoint, from 2001 to 2007 and ran the imprint on behalf of Counterpoint until early 2009. He now consults for authors and publishers on how to reach readers and is developing a start-up called Cursor, a portfolio of niche social publishing communities.






Rhys Cazenove has been involved in Digital Publishing and Media for over 10 years. Previous work includes actioning the digital strategy for Comedy Central (thedailyshow.com, jokes.com & comedycentral.com, amongst others) which included a robust analytics methodology combined with thorough SEO & SEM campaigns. Recently he co-founded Enhanced Editions to produce enhanced e-books for the new generation of personal devices.