During the last Readmagine conference there was a dialogue between Stefano Mauri and Porter Anderson which was centered on the exploration of the role of publishers for the next ten years. This dialogue offered to the participants at the conference in Casa del Lector (Fundación Germán Sánchez Ruipérez) an inspiring bunch of ideas from two diverse points of view: the perspective of a very experienced publisher who manage one of the most publishing groups -Stefano Mauri (Gruppo Editoriale Mauri Spagnol, Italy)- and the approaches by one of the journalists and consultants more prestigious on innovation of the publishing sector in the world -Porter Anderson (Publishing Perspectives, USA)-. In this web site all the interested can access to the video of whole conversation and here is a very brief interview with both speakers.
From the point of view of Mauri the main challenges are to keep up the growing of the market and finding good novels and great authors to nurture.
And the proposal of Anderson for the book world is to learn to live with ‘our brother and sister media, and by that, I mean film, television, music and videogames’ instead of working as silos (as the publishing sector is doing so far) the challenge for the next years is collaborate with those other media.
Stefano Mauri is Chairman and CEO of the Editorial Group Mauri Spagnol and Vice President of Messaggerie Italiane. Literature degree in Milan (1985) and master of Science in Publishing in New York (1987). He is President and Ceo of GeMS – Gruppo editoriale Mauri Spagnol, the second Italian publishing group with 10 publishing houses and 19 publishing brands, and Vice President and CEO for the strategies of Messaggerie Italiane.
Stefano Mauri is the Italian member of the Assembly of the Federation of European Publishers (FEP) and he is a member of the organizing committee of Scuola per Librai Umberto e Elisabetta Mauri. He is the creator of IoScrittore Literary Competition. He is one of the founders of Edigita, the main national distributor of ebooks in Italy. Since 2012 he is Cavaliere del Lavoro (highest honor for an entrepreneur bestowed by the President of the Italian Republic Giorgio Napolitano).
Porter Anderson (@Porter_Anderson) BA, MA, MFA, is a journalist, speaker, and consultant specializing in book publishing. Formerly with CNN and CNN International as well as the Village Voice, the Dallas Times Herald, and The Bookseller, he is Editor-in-Chief of Publishing Perspectives, founded and operated by Frankfurt Book Fair New York. Publishing Perspectives is the news medium for the international trade publishing industry. With Jane Friedman, Anderson produces The Hot Sheet, a private subscription newsletter of expert industry analysis written expressly for trade and independent authors.
