Publishing Innovation: the annual publishing conference at the London College of Communication

Speakers - panel 1 (3:45 FOR 4:15):

• Clive Bryant (Chairman at Classical Comics)
• Julia Strong (Deputy Director, NLT/Director, National Reading Campaign)
• Doug Wallace (Marketing Director of the Manga Team at SelfMadeHero)

Speakers - panel 2 (5:45 FOR 6:15):

• Andrew Franklin (Profile Books)
• Dylan Jones (Editor, GQ magazine)
• Tony Lacey (Publishing Director, Penguin Books)

Clive has a strong entrepreneurial background, having been a major force behind the success of Software Warehouse in the 1990s, a founder of jungle.com in 1999, and creating the UK's first online karaoke service, Sing To The World in 2001. In 2002 Clive was a founder of a business that became the UK's first falling price jewellery-only TV shopping channel, Gems TV. Quickly an international success, Gems TV floated on the Singapore Stock Exchange in November 2006.

During 2006 he wrote his first book, POP Success; and it was through the knowledge that Clive amassed while illustrating his own book that he got hooked on cartooning and the long-form comic book format called the Graphic Novel. This interest, coupled with his love for classical literature and a desire to make the world a better place culminated in the idea that became Classical Comics, creating Graphic Novel adaptations of literary classics.

Clive Bryant

Julia Strong is deputy director of the National Literacy Trust and director of the National Reading Campaign. As Director of the National Reading Campaign, she has helped develop Reading Connects, an umbrella organisation which brings together all the key national organisations interested in helping schools use reading for pleasure to enhance achievement. Through its free website, Reading Connects offers a support network to get the whole school reading.

Julia Strong

Before university, Doug spent a year at Moscow State University studying Russian and teaching English language. He graduated from University College London, MA in Modern History, was Advertising Manager for UCL’s Pi magazine and worked as a freelance Editor. After graduating, he was employed as a ghostwriter for Artnik Books, followed by three years as a Project Editor at a financial publisher who specialize in marketing publications. He joined Metro Media Ltd at the end of 2006 to help launch SelfMadeHero in March 2007. Outside work, he was Chair of the Society of Young Publishers in 2007 and is currently a Director of BTBS.

Doug Wallace

Andrew Franklin set up Profile Books in 1996 after leaving Penguin where he was made redundant after working there for 11 years, including six spent running Hamish Hamilton. At Profile he has set out to publish lively, interesting non-fiction with as much energy and passion as possible. Profile publishes many established writers, including Frances Fukuyama, Alan Bennett and Wole Soyinka. It publishes about 50 new books a year, many by new writers.In 2006, it was Small Publisher of the Year for the third time, the only company to have won three times. The company has enjoyed major success with the publication of Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss, which has sold over three million copies world wide. In 2007 Profile acquired Serpent's Tail, the celebrated indie publisher famous for edgy fiction, noir crime and fiction in translation. Profile is a founder member of the Alliance group of independent publishers.

Andrew Franklin

Dylan Jones is the Editor of British GQ. He studied design and photography at Chelsea School of Art and St. Martins School of Art in London before becoming the Editor of i-D magazine in 1984. He has since been an Editor at The Face, Arena, The Observer and The Sunday Times. He has won the BSME Editor of the Year award four times, once for his work on Arena (1993), and three times for GQ (2001, 2002, 2004). He has published an international best-selling biography of Jim Morrison (Dark Star, 1990), a biography of Paul Smith (True Brit, 1995) and two anthologies of journalism (Meaty, Beaty, Big & Bouncy and Sex, Power and Travel, both 1996). iPod, Therefore I Am (Weidenfeld & Nicholson) was published in 2005, and his latest book, Mr Jones Rules (Hodder & Stoughton) has just been published.

Dylan Jones

Tony Lacey has worked at Penguin for 30 years. He was Publishing Director of Puffin, Penguin children’s imprint, from 1980-82, and then the first Publishing Director of the new adult list, Viking. His authors include Nick Hornby, Will Self, Jonathan Coe, Claire Tomalin, William Trevor and John Mortimer.

Tony Lacey