The growing trend towards “author-preneurship” reveals a range of opportunities and skills for authors to both gain from and contribute to the business world. Authors are founding startups, producing films, running lecture agencies, consulting with Fortune 500 companies, and entirely-author led services for the industry itself. This underscores not only the desire for an author point of view in business but the benefits of authors taking an entrepreneurial approach to one’s literary career.

In this podcast episode, we explore issues related to “author-preneurship”, including time management, legal issues, working with collaborators and self-identity within and outside of your entrepreneurial endeavors.

Kevin Smokler, Chief Evangelist and Community Director of BookTour moderates this panel. Smokler is joined by Betsy Amster, President of Betsy Amster Literary Enterprises; Mark Sarvas, litblogger and author of Harry Revised; Kim Rickets, founder of Kim Rickets Book Events; and Ron Hogan, founder of Beatrice.

In this podcast episode Brian O’Leary, Founder of Magellan Media Consulting Partners, leads publishers through this process. Among other things, he teaches us:

• when it makes sense to buy, and when to build
• how to value a web business in terms of what it brings to a publisher and what the publisher brings to the web site
• current EBITDA multiples for different kinds of sites
• options to outright purchase, including strategic partnerships

Robert Baensch, Principal of Baensch International Group Ltd. and author of The Publishing Industry in China, leads the discussion to answer these questions. Baensch is joined by Ou Yang, Editor-in-Chief of China Publishing Today and Liu Yuan, VP at China Higher Education Press.

Ever wanted to know how you can expand your business and network with LinkedIn? Learn how to launch your own LinkedIn profile in a matter of minutes and start connecting with the 19 million professionals already signed up!

The experts on LinkedIn, Eric Butow and Kathy Taylor, authors of the upcoming book How to Succeed in Business Using LinkedIn: Making Connections and Capturing Opportunities on the World’s #1 Business Networking Site show you everything you need to know. Get connected instantly, no matter if you’re a bookseller, publisher, author, or business professional.

Hosted by the AAP Trade Libraries Committee, the 2008 BEA Librarian Book Buzz brought together the industry’s top library marketing directors of the nation’s publishing houses. They were each given a chance to talk about the titles they find most inspiring for the upcoming season…and why.

This panel was moderated by Barbara Genco, Director of Collection Development at the Brooklyn Public Library. She was joined by Virginia Stanley, Director of Academic and Library Services at HarperCollins Publishers; Talia Ross, Library Marketing Manager at Holtzbrinck Publishers; Geoff Kloske, VP and Publisher at Riverhead Books; Jen Childs, Director of Library Marketing at Random House; and Michael Rockliff, Director of Library Sales and Marketing at Workman Publishing.

Today, about 500 books are formally challenged each year. Why are we still so afraid of the free exchange of ideas? Does government have a legitimate interest in monitoring the flow of information or “safeguarding public morality” in the bookstore, library, or school? What have been the most innovative and successful push-backs used by booksellers and librarians in local communities when challenged?

Nicholas Goldberg, Editor, Op-Ed and Sunday Opinion for the Los Angeles Times leads this rousing session – Obscene in the Extreme: Why Books Still Get Banned.

Goldberg is joined by panelists Chris Finan, President of ABFFE (American Booksellers Foundation for Freedom of Expression) and author of From The Palmer Raids to the Patriot Act: A History of the Fight for Free Speech in America; Luis Rodriguez, author of Always Running: La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A., a critically-acclaimed memoir of LA gang life that has been on the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books list; and Rick Wartzman, author of Obscene in the Extreme: The Burning and Banning of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.

In this podcast episode – How Libraries Buy: Librarians Reveal Their Methods for Collection Development – a panel of librarians discuss how they determine the needs of their communities, what sources of information they use to identify titles and how publishers can best reach them.

Moderated by EarlyWord.com founder Nora Rawlinson, this panel included Laura Lent, Collection Development Manager of the San Francisco Public Library; Gail Mueller-Schultz, Principal Librarian in Hennepin County Library’s Collection Management Services Department; and Kathleen Sullivan, Collection Development Coordinator at the Phoenix Public Library.

The panelists for this program represent publishing and educational programs that monitor the development of the newest version of literacy.

Moderator John Shableski, Sales Manager at Diamond Book Distributors, was joined by panelists Francoise Mouly, Publisher of Toon Books; Gene Yang, author of American Born Chinese; and Terry Thompson, a teacher,literacy coach, and author of Adventures in Graphica.

This panel of distinguished editors included Richard Nash, Editorial Director at Counterpoint; Megan Lynch, Senior Editor at Riverhead Books; John Glusman, Executive Editor at Harmony Books; Sarah Knight, Editor at Henry Holt and Co.; Reagan Arthur, Executive Editor at Little, Brown and Co.; and Laurie Chittenden, Executive Editor at William Morrow.

BEA Editors Buzz was moderated by Sara Nelson, Editor-in-Chief of Publishers Weekly.

This podcast episode will help retailers understand how they can not only help customers shop their stores, but also keep them coming back. Customers have little time today and retailers who adopt merchandising schemes around customers’ needs give the customers something they truly want – a unique shopping experience that helps them save time and energy.

With these new economies becoming known as “sharing” and “gift” economies, what’s the role of the working writer? And in a world where “free” is fast becoming the new buzz word, how do publishers make a buck? How do authors? And is there a difference between information and content? Does everything have to be free?

In this podcast episode – Scaling the New Economies: In Search of Book Publishing’s 2.0 Business Model – this distinguished panel of online experts tell us how we can make dollars, and sense, out of these new and emerging economies and ideas.

Panel moderator Jeff Gomez, Senior Director of Online Consumer Sales and Marketing at Penguin Group USA, is joined by Derek Powazek, Founder of JPG magazine; Dave Hanley, VP of Marketing at Shelfari, and Scott Sigler, a social media strategist and author of Infected.

Mike Shatzkin, Founder and CEO of The Idea Logical Company, Inc., leads this informative discussion. He was joined by industry experts Susan Danziger, President of Publisher of DailyLit; Chris McKenney, Chief Content Officer of Mobifusion; Caroline Vanderlip, CEO of SharedBook, Inc.; and Michael Forney, President of netGalley.

For publishers to remain relevant and increase sales, it is essential that they incorporate new output formats into their product mix, which make it easy for buyers to access and recompile book content in the format of their choice, whether it be printed on demand, accessed online or on mobile devices. How can publishers harness the energy and success of new distribution technologies to market and monetize their backlists? How do you format and distribute content across a variety of new platforms and maintain copyright protections? How does the expanded digital content provide the basis for sales opportunities? The answer may seem radical to traditional book publishers but not to modern-day online users who are accustomed to digital access and use of content when, where and how they like it.

Todd Eckler, Vice President of North American Sales at LibreDigital, leads us through this educational session.

Peter Osnos, Founder and Editor-at-Large, PublicAffairs and Director of The Caravan Project moderates this panel of digital publishing experts. These project participants describe its challenges and achievements and describe the benefits for everyone in the publishing world of making books more widely available in these formats.

Osnos is joined by John Ingram, Chairman of Ingram Content Companies; Steve Potash, CEO of Overdrive, Inc.; Tom Hallock, Associate Publisher of Beacon Press; and Chris Murrow, General Manager of Northshire Books.

In this podcast episode, these esteemed authors talk about their recent and upcoming audiobooks and the experience of hearing their works translated into audiobook format.

This session was hosted by the Audio Publishers Association.

• Learning to live in an age of limits on everything
• Embracing diversity and redefining ourselves as world citizens; this is particularly led by our youngest adults
• Rejecting materialism and a growing introspection about a fuller meaning to our lives
• A demand for authenticity from our politicians, products and our daily encounters

How does this affect the way we vote and shop, and bookselling in particular? In this podcast episode, Zogby releases the results of a special consumer poll he conducted for BookExpo America of how and why American consumers are buying books. Plus lots of tidbits and factoids from many years of closing in on the American mind.

This breakfast panel’s discussion focused on the evolution of graphic novel publishing from the underground comics scene through the category’s current explosion into mainstream bookselling. The speakers place their own work in the context of a long, rich comics history and make some intriguing predictions about the future.

Jeff Smith, panel moderator and author of Bone, was joined by Mike Mignola, author of Hellboy, Jeph Loeb, author of Marvel’s The Ultimates and co-executive producer of the hit show Heroes, and Art Spiegelman, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Maus and author of the forthcoming Breakdowns.

What’s the future of the environmental movement if kids choose the virtual world over the real one? Can literature continue to inspire children and parents to go outside and play?

This panel included Jessica Woods, Children’s Book Buyer at Northshire Books; Chris Morrow, GM of Northshire Books; bestselling children’s writer and Audubon Medal recipient T.A. Barron; and Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods.

Moderated by Collette Morgan, owner of Wild Rumpus bookstore, these industry experts discuss how books and bookstores can be natural resources for reconnecting children with nature.

Using his latest release, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations as the platform and the book industry as the fulcrum, Shirky puts forth an industry specific understanding of the opportunities and the threats to the existing industry order that these new, spontaneous networks of social interaction represent.

Howe not only wrote about crowdsourcing—the act of taking a job once performed by an employee and outsourcing it to a large, undefined group of people over the Internet—he also embodied it. His British publisher, Random House UK, held a crowdsourcing competition to design the dust jacket of his book. He also included published excerpts from the book on his blog, crowdsourcing.com in order to elicit critical comments from his readers. The most trenchant and insightful of the comments will be published as endnotes in an appendix to the book proper.

The idea is to create a book that contains multiple perspectives on a powerful, albeit controversial emerging phenomenon. And publishers should take note of Howe’s insights for harnessing such web-enabled authorial tactics.

This panel of industry experts included Nick Smith – Librarian Technician and Trade reviewer, Pasadena Public Library; Jessica Stockton Bagnulo – Graphic Novel Buyer, McNally Robinson Booksellers; Atom Freeman – Owner, New World Comics; and Tom Flinn – VP Content, ICv2.

Milton Griepp of ICv2 served as moderator.

The presentation offers details concerning the overall size of the U.S. book market and growth projections for 2008 through 2012. For more than thirty years Book Industry TRENDS has been an authoritative and indispensable tool used by all sectors of the book industry to stay on top of business today. Planners, marketers, publishers, business developers, sales directors and others find this report invaluable in formulating more successful marketing strategies and business development plans.

This podcast episode features Michael Healy, Executive Director of Book Industry Study Group, Inc., and Fordham University Prof. Albert N. Greco of the Institute for Publishing Research.

BEA partner Chris Kenneally of “Beyond the Book” recently interviewed Healy and Greco about Book Industry TRENDS 2008. To listen to that podcast, please visit www.beyondthebook.com.

Panelists from publishing, academia, and the library community explore how social networking, online programming (including Internet-delivered TV), and related technology are poised to become saviors of printed word. Featuring publisher Paul Dry; publisher Ana Maria Allessi of audio titles and e-books for HarperMedia; Deborah Kovacs, Senior Vice President of Publishing for Walden Media; and librarian and author Irene McDermott.

The Future of Reading was moderated by Christopher Kenneally, Director of Author and Creator Relations at Copyright Clearance Center and host of the “Beyond the Book” podcast series.

This year’s Emerging Voices panelists were: Nami Mun – author, Miles from Nowhere; Rachel Kushner – author, Telex from Cuba; Andrew Davidson – author, Gargoyle; Mark Sarvas – author, Harry, Revised; Barbara Suter – author, Dorothy on the Rocks; and Rivka Galchen – author, Atmospheric Disturbances.

While at BEA, Rivka Galchen also stopped by the BEA Authors Studio. Listen to the interview here.

Created by Jordan on the Apple II computer 20 years ago, Prince of Persia has become one of the world’s most popular and enduring video game franchises, with over 10 million copies sold. Jordan adapted his game as a feature film screenplay for Jerry Bruckheimer/Walt Disney Pictures (coming Summer 2009), and directed a graphic novel adaptation to be published by First Second Books (September 2008).

In fact, baby boomers–ages 43-61– comprise the largest book-buying demographic today. But as lucrative as this consumer may be, marketing books to boomers is not for the faint of heart. They are a complex, demanding and often unpredictable generation–but worth the effort. This panel of experts will help you reach, connect with and influence this ultimate power consumer.

Moderated by Carol Orsborn, Ph.D., Sr. VP and co-chair of Fleishman-Hillard’s FH Boom, the panel included Ellen Archer, Sr. VP and Publisher of Hyperion/Voice; Karen Murgolo, VP and Editorial Director of Springboard Press; and David Singleton, Director of Planning and Promotion for AARP Publications.

Writers and journalists from all over the world are imprisoned, threatened, persecuted, or attacked in the course of carrying out their profession. This panel, Something to Hide: Writers Against the Surveillance State, brings to light many of these injustices, and urges writers and readers alike to fight to keep the written word free.

Featured speakers were: Larry Siems, Pen American Center’s Freedom to Write and International Programs Director; Jameel Jaffer, attorney at the ACLU; author Jim Crace; and Sally Brooks.

Joining this group was a distinguished group of writers and artists including Andre Dubus III, Roxanna Robinson, Judy Blume, Dennis Lehane, and Azar Nafisi.