The news of publishing business: The London Book Fair 2018

Abstract

The authors review the topics discussed at the London Book Fair 2018 (April 10-12, 2018), in particular, the publishing industry, statistics, growing audiobooks sales, using big volumes of customer data for increasing profits, artificial intelligence and blockchain technologies. The printed and digital books have reached some balance, while the future of e-books looks the more complicated from the perspective of copyright, self-publication, open access, piracy, data acquisition, fake news, social networks regulation and new, hidden forms of censorship. The publishing process players believe that lacking e-document rights management instruments (DRM) influences positively on the number of downloads. The authors focus on science and academic publishing issues, digital technologies in publishing. The review of these issues presented by Michael Coleman, Elsevier Publishers' Vice President, President of International Publishers Association, is discussed. Changes of national copyright legislations in several countries are analyzed. The authors emphasize that publishers are responsible for information quality and reliability. Freedom of publications is also discussed.