Matt Haslum spent 8 years building an award-winning digital creative agency working with big brands, helping them focus on engaging their customers online. He joined Faber & Faber as Marketing Director in 2012, building a list-focussed consumer-facing marketing team along side an award-winning website and Members programme. Since leaving Faber in 2017, Matt has been consulting for publishers and creative agencies on a broad range of topics – from digital development, to list & campaign planning, to marketing and publishing strategy. In March 2018, Matt became UK MD of Chelsea Green Publishing, leading US publisher on the politics and practise of sustainable living.

As digital engagement and social platforms have evolved over the past decade or more, data has become increasingly critical to the way publishers think and act. Good data is critical in understanding readers, platforms use and behaviours and this year’s Quantum conference brings together those key elements. The result is, we believe, a programme that delivers practically, as well as leaving delegates informed and their thinking challenged.

There’s so much we now know, so it’s key to be able to disseminate data and develop insight we can act on – and that’s why Quantum is such a necessary platform for our industry as it gives us both the information and the practical advice on how to move our businesses forward. Data should never replace excellent editorial judgement; instead, it should assist publishers in their decision-making, helping them to create more meaningful relationships between authors and readers, and  allowing them to develop and extend their own connections with consumers.

With voice-first, connected-home technology (think Amazon Echo, Google Assistant) exploding into the public consciousness and audio publishing finally taking its rightful place as a serious player, we’re seeing a broader audience of reluctant readers and non-readers discovering information and storytelling in their own way. Alongside new and original content offerings, platform evolution and welcoming brilliant, diverse talent into the industry, this seismic shift in audiobooks will be core to how the industry develops in the coming years – and Quantum is the ideal forum to share, discuss and learn.

This year’s themes are on trend with the industry’s big conversations, with audio featuring heavily. Tom Goodwin from Zenith Media kicks us off with ‘New Rules of Business and New Waves of Storytelling in the Post Digital World’, looking at the consumer landscape and valuable broader thinking of what publishers need to be thinking about.

We’re incredibly pleased to have Hachette CEO David Shelley in conversation, which will give us valuable insight into how global publishing is thinking about tech and audio.

There’s a strong vein of practicality running through the day’s programme. Ebury’s MD Rebecca Smart leads a strong panel on ‘Practical Consumer Insight to Help Improve your Decision-Making’, where she’s joined by the BBC and The Football Association to name but two.

We explore how new forms of content have changed the face of publishing in ‘Content at the Crossroads: Deconstructing the New Creative Talent’, with industry leader Abigail Bergstrom of Gleam Futures in conversation with Ben Dunn, MD of King’s Road Publishing. This will be complimented nicely by a case study exploring influencer marketing, from Giles Harris of Influencer Marketing agency, Come Round, and Kat McKenna, Senior Marketing Manager from Pan Macmillan.

Being found in an overcrowded consumer space is an ongoing challenge for publishers, so we have a great panel on ‘Discoverability, Superabundance and How to Rise to the Fore’.

We then move into the audiobook portion, which comprehensively covers what publishers need to know right now, starting with ‘The Global Audiobook Market – Alive with Opportunities’ which will give us the landscape of global audio publishing and insight into where it’s heading.

After that we speak to the producers of audio in ‘Creating Compelling Audiobooks: the Unique Potential for Audio’ and explore why audio has broken through in ‘Raise your Voice: the Rise of Audio and Future of Spoken Word Entertainment’, with panelists from the BBC and Google Play.

One of the biggest questions being asked in audio publishing is how to market to this new audience so our ‘Who’s Listening and How to Reach Them: Challenges and Tactics for Marketing Audio’ session is essential viewing.

We speak to the voices bringing the books to life, with British acting royalty Adjoa Andoh in Conversation with Audible’s ‘Narrator of the Year 2011’ Lorelei King and we finish the day exploring ‘Music to my Ears: The Challenges of Narrating International Writing’.

As you can see, we’ve worked hard to create a day that really lives up to its themes – inspiration, driven by data. There’s so much to take away that will stimulate and inspire publishers and content creators and we’d love you to join us. There’s still plenty of time to get your tickets – just click here or if you can’t make it to London Book Fair, follow the day on Twitter using the hashtag #quantum18.