Celebrate Independent Bookshop Week by tuning into a live, inspiring Wednesday Wisdom Q&A session on Wednesday 23rd June from 1–1:30pm BST with Andrew Rhomberg, founder and CEO of Jellybooks, and Kieron Smith, Digital Director at Blackwell’s.

Since Jellybooks launched their cross-industry platform enabling excerpts and snippets for bookshops and publishers in March 2021 in partnership with Blackwell’s, we’re excited to catch up with how Andrew and Kieron have been working together over the past few months.

Tune into the session to find out more about the look-inside/preview features Blackwell’s launched across their sites to boost online sales, the biggest lessons Andrew and the Jellybooks team have learned along the way, and how these tools are helping bookshops and booksellers with marketing – as well as their customers discover more when buying and browsing books and content online.

The Q&A is a great opportunity to get to know the people behind the services and tools that are helping bookshops bounce back – especially as we celebrate #IndieBookShopWeek from the 19–26th June this year. You’ll also have the chance to ask your own questions to Kieron and Andrew, as we will open up the floor to the audience in the final 10 minutes. We hope to see you there!

*This session will have live closed captioning available for viewers to toggle on or off as needed*

About Wednesday Wisdom

The Wednesday Wisdom series is designed to give you a brief, inspiring insight into the working lives and projects of publishing experts, and the help you learn more about the services that can take you to the next level. On selected Wednesdays throughout the year, take a break and join us on Zoom for live these Q&As to top up your motivation and learn something new.

BookMachine members can browse 40+ Wednesday Wisdom replays in the archives.

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About Andrew

Andrew Rhomberg is the founder and CEO of Brixton-based reader analytics and publishing technology firm Jellybooks. Prior to Jellybooks he worked for txtr, Skype, Here, Airbiquity, Reciva, and range of other start-ups in the music, media, internet and consumer electronics industry. He has a Ph.D. from MIT and  a M.S. from the University of Innsbruck. He has been an invited speaker at Assises du Livre Numérique, Book Expo America, DBW, Digital Publishing Summit, If Book Then, London Book Fair, Frankfurt Books Fair, Leipzig Book Fair, NISO, Publishers Forum, STM conference, and the SYP conference.

Twitter: @arhomberg

Follow Andrew on LinkedIn

About Kieron

Kieron is a professional bookseller with over 20 years book trade experience, including WHSmith Retail, establishing the Ottakars.co.uk website in 1999, heading up the web offering at Bertelsmann’s Book Clubs in the UK and operations at Methven’s Booksellers, followed by three years outside the industry at Europe’s leading video games website GAME.co.uk. Head of online for Waterstone’s in 2006-7 and then MD of international bookseller The Book Depository (now an Amazon company) for five years. He joined the UK’s leading Independent Bookseller, Blackwell’s, as Digital Director in 2015. Kieron is also a published author, his book The Politics of Down Syndrome (Zero Books) published in 2011.

Twitter: @KieronJS

Follow Keiron on LinkedIn

About Jellybooks

Jellybooks is a data, audience insights and reading platform for book publishers and retailers. In March 2021, in partnership with Blackwell’s Books, Jellybooks launched a cross-industry platform for excerpts and snippets service bookshops and publishers in the UK and Ireland.

Twitter: @jellybooks / Instagram: @Jellybooks

About Blackwell’s

Blackwell’s was founded on New Year’s Day 1879, at 50 Broad Street, Oxford. 2021 marks Blackwell’s 142nd anniversary. From humble beginnings the company has built a worldwide reputation for unrivalled customer service, specialist knowledge and a passion for bookselling.  We continue to be a fiercely independent family owned values led business, where putting our customers first is at the very heart of what we do.

Our mission is to become the world’s most trusted bookseller and to change lives through reading and books. We have eighteen shops, including those in Oxford, Cambridge, London and Edinburgh, alongside those based on university campuses. Blackwell’s also has a thriving corporate, professional and institutional business serving both private and public organisations. Blackwells.co.uk continues to grow rapidly in the UK and internationally. The online platform is designed and managed in-house and is a cornerstone of Blackwell’s multi-channel strategy.