Publishers becoming more creative

"The bit between the writer and reader is called publishing. We need to think of copyright in an imaginative way. Publishers are very creative about formats for books, through covers and marketing campaigns, but we are not that creative about the product. The creativity there seems to go on before we receive the product. We can think what we might make from the copyright and from the brilliance of working with an author.

Publishers have to form more partnerships with sister creative industries, communicate better with authors and other publishers, re-skill and re-train workforces to know what is coming next in digital but, above all, create value and champion and support copyright.

The baton-passing, linear nature of publishing, marching department to department towards the trade, doesn't lend itself well to the creative process about what we might do and what copyright we might offer. We have to build the structural architecture that allows opportunity for that creativity to happen. We have to be able to interrupt and get the attention of our audience on a very wide scale."

Stephen Page, MD of Faber and FaberClick for Faber and Faber Publishers References listing, at the Bookseller's Futurebook conference.