Speakers and topics are being announced as registration opens for Madrid’s Readmagine conference, which plans its online events in June and a ’boutique edition’ in-person event in late November.

In our coverage on Monday (May 11), we looked at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair effort to present the world publishing industry’s most ambitious effort yet in mounting a digital edition of a long-running (57 years) trade show event. There were many successes, especially good to see coming from one of the hardest-hit international book markets in the coronavirus pandemic.

Many of the key takeaways from that event for other programs now working to develop their own digital evocations have to do with practical realities. Needless to say, the question of audience is paramount.

If your event is one aimed at consumers, as ReedPop’s BookCon-in-cyberspace, BookConline, will be, then the digital presentation, its aesthetics and architecture, is fan-driven for an audience made of customers, not industry professionals. This will be the kind of driver considered by the Sharjah Book Authority, too, for its 10-day online reading festival.

Read more here