Those of you who have been following us for a while will know how important we perceive innovation to be within the publishing industry.

For the past 11 years, we have championed our innovative members, showcased the latest thinking in publishing at our events and always explored new ways of working ourselves.

Following this journey, we are excited and delighted to be shortlisted in the Innovation category for The Best of Royal Greenwich Business Awards 2021.

The awards celebrate and recognise what local businesses have achieved over the last 18 months alongside managing the challenges of working through a pandemic. It also recognises how businesses have adapted and innovated to keep afloat.

At the start of the pandemic, we realised that we needed to step-up our game to cater for the needs of the modern professional at home. This was a radical and unexpected shift in our business model.

We worked through the first lockdown on refining BookMachine CAMPUS, our online learning platform for publishing professionals. Through a +CAMPUS membership, in addition to CAMPUS video courses you also get access to a multitude of online events, industry discounts and an archive of extra resources that can be accessed anytime, anywhere using a simple subscription model. 

As a result, over the past year BookMachine membership has doubled, 12 companies have joined BookMachine Teams (a format which allows publishing houses to sign up their entire teams) and, by moving our events online, we have helped a wider number of professionals tap into industry insights from all over the world.

If we are successful in winning at the awards, we would utilise the prize money to develop a new suite of training courses for our members and the wider publishing community. If not, it is a great pleasure to be listed along other local innovative business and to be recognised for our efforts to support publishers through uncertain times.

Laura Summers is Director and Co-Founder of BookMachine, the fast-growing Community and Creative Agency specialising in book publishing. Our mission is to provide every publishing professional with the knowledge, ideas and connections to help them to progress in their careers.

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