The Theme of this year's conference is "Follow the Reader".  Borrowed from the name of the popular blog hosted at NetGalley.com; it seems a very appropriate context for us all to be thinking as we take the time to explore the changes and challenges in publishing today.  After all, it is the readers, who serve as the ultimate arbiter of taste, and ultimately the people who support all of us through their purchases.  As technologies become simpler and more ubiquitous, we all need to keep our eyes on what READERS are doing and how they want to be served by our industry.

  
    We are pleased and honored to have Andrew Savikas, VP of Digital Initiatives at O'Reilly Media, and the Program Chair for O'Reilly's Tools of Change for Publishing conference as our keynote speaker this year. As you are all aware, Tools of Change has become a pre-eminent place for discussing publishing related technologies. It seems that no matter where a salient discussion of the future of publishing is happening, Andrew is there.  For more on Andrew, you can find his Bio here.

    
    The structure of the conference this year includes two tracks, one that is directly related to Firebrand products and services, and another that is related to higher level industry issues.

    On the Firebrand front, we are proud to be featuring our newest addition to the Firebrand offerings - NetGalley. Be sure to watch for sessions to learn more about how this exciting new service can revamp the way you approach publicity and book review activities. 

    Of course, from a practical point of view, last year Firebrand unveiled the upcoming Title Management Version 7 Enterprise Software. This year, it is time to really learn how to implement this major upgrade. We will be holding many practical sessions this year to assist our community in this migration. 

    This year we are also offering premium workshops on the afternoon prior to the Community Conference. Targeting four key areas that are of key interest to our user community, these sessions will have very limited space to provide in depth training. Please see the Special Workshops in the Agenda for more information. 

    And finally, back by request to a larger degree is the Firebrand Unconference. The second day sessions will be decided by YOU, our community members at a planning session first thing in the morning. Based on the great success last year, we have expanded this format, with the understanding that many of the answers and ideas to questions that we all face exist within the audience, not on stage with 'experts'. Learn more about the Unconference in the   More Info Section.

    This page will be continually updated with the latest information as the conference details are finalized. Much of the conference has been determined based on what we've heard from our publishers and partners. This approach has led us to a rich conference schedule, with opportunities for all of us to learn and meet other book folks.