It’s safe to say that 2021 was a year of continued challenge for the industry and those working within it. However, as well as many low points, there were some highs to take away from the year.

The Association of American Publishers (AAP) statistics recorded trade sales for October at $1.04bn, the first time AAP has reported more than a billion in sales in a single month; the Guadalajara International Book Fair held a smaller, but safe and successful, in-person Fair in December; and the Italian book market celebrated high international rights sales.

Now a new year has arrived, we hope you are feeling more positive about the coming year and the opportunities it brings – both for your career and professional development and for creating change within the industry as a whole.

At BookMachine, we are shaking a few things up, keeping a few things the same and making sure to create new ways for you to tap into all things publishing, meet new people and skill up in 2022.

Here are five things to expect from BookMachine over the next 12 months.

1. We’ve switched to Streams

If you joined us for 2020 and 2021, we previously split up these years into ‘Seasons’ – 6 weeks of the year where we focussed in on one publishing area or department.

This year, we will run six concurrent Streams throughout 2022 – Production & Operations, Editorial, Tech, Audio, Marketing, and Design – allowing you tap into the areas, topics and discussions that matter the most to you across the entire year.

We hope this will also keep us even more up-to-date with emerging knowledge and trends as they take shape, without being constricted to a particular month or season.

Browse the upcoming events across the Streams here – from training, Q&As and online panel events.

2. Events are still online – and remote-first and hybrid is in our future

Our online BookMachine Unplugged event series is back for another year! The theme for 2022 is the “Year of Change”. Together with our guest speakers and hosts, we’ll be inviting you to discover more ways to lead the way, shake up the industry and create positive change for all. Each event in the series will slot into each of the six Streams and will take place on Zoom to allow you to tap in from anywhere. A number of free tickets will also be available to individuals who would not otherwise be able to afford to attend.

We’ll also continue to run up to two Wednesday Wisdom live interview sessions each month over the course of 2022 as well as our monthly Members’ Mixers using virtual networking platform, Wonder.

3. In-person events will be supplementary

In 2021, we ran a number of in-person Walk and Talk events to great success. These events meant that publishing people were able to meet safely outdoors, get a fix of nature and connect with other industry professionals IRL. We very much hope to continue these events this year alongside our virtual offering, and even extend the locations around the UK and eventually the globe.

Get in touch with us if you have a passion for walking and you would like to host your own Publishers’ Walk and Talk event locally to you.

4. The app is ready for you

In November, we launched the BookMachine App – allowing members to engage with the BookMachine Community, access exclusive perks and resources and take CAMPUS video courses on the go, or away from their desks.

As anyone who has worked with digital products will know, these projects can take a while to complete and it was a big project for us in 2021! It’s now in both the App Store and Google Play Store, and on the devices of publishing professionals globally.

If you haven’t already, you can download it here, sign up as a member or log into your existing member account, and start connecting from anywhere.

5. New CAMPUS video courses are coming

New batches of BookMachine CAMPUS video courses for publishing professionals will launch this year! We have already added to the CAMPUS course library three times and there are now 22 courses for you to start taking to develop key skills to help you move forward in your career. From running marketing campaigns on a budget, creating P&L reports and pitching and presenting skills to SEO, managing teams and social media advertising, there are plenty of topics all relevant to mid-level publishing professionals.

With the next two course releases planned for separate launch dates in 2022, we hope to build on these topics to create a really comprehensive programme that everyone in publishing can find value in.

Find out more about joining BookMachine with a +CAMPUS membership here.

Here’s to a productive and positive 2022. We’re looking forward to connecting with you all!