I’m on my way back from the IPG Spring Conference in London, always one of the highlights of the publishing year. It was a really good mix of the inspirational, the practical, and a uniquely generous, welcoming and supportive community. I particularly enjoyed the presentations from former Shazam chairman and crime writer Ajay Chowdhury, National Literacy Trust CEO Jonathan Douglas, BBC media editor Katie Razzall, Illumicrate CEO Daphne Tonge and Bonnier UK Co-CEOs Sarah Benton and Jonathan Perdoni. I spoke in the morning about the IPG’s forthcoming short training courses (data, content creation, websites/GEO and AI risk/governance) and in the afternoon to give members an update on the policy and licensing landscape for AI.

There was a lot of food for thought from the conference, and in a spirit of sharing and thinking in public, here are sixteen things I am thinking about as a result of the day. This list is a combination of statements made by speakers and my reflections. In general, the ‘what’ comes from the original speakers; the ‘so what’ and ‘now what’ are my thoughts. It’s based on my shorthand notes, taken at face value. Any errors are mine, and I don’t have data sources for all of these statement. As a result, I haven’t attributed the original points to individuals, though you might guess many of them.

1. The average British person has an hour less leisure time per day than in 2020 (was that an artificial high owing to the pandemic—would love to see the data on that). Publishing is competing for time as well as money. A structural reduction in leisure time intensifies competition from low-friction, short-form media. In some categories at least, publishers should optimise for clearer value proposition, tighter positioning and lower cognitive load.
2. The marketing power of creating a product that becomes a verb (e.g. Shazam). Or I suppose an adjective (e.g. Dickensian, Orwellian, Kafkaesque).
3. I don’t talk to anyone yesterday who has an issue with Shazam, but its initial training data came from ripping a warehouse of CDs bought from Woolworths (interesting to compare this with e.g. Anthropic buying physical books to OCR for training). Innovation often starts in legally grey areas before formal licensing frameworks mature, and data accumulation precedes governance.
4. Larger independent publishers being happy in their own skin at sub–Big Five scale (including enhancing employment conditions and retention to get past the idea of being the farm team for larger houses). Scale isn’t an end in its own right.
5. How to reconcile long-term strategy—a stated aim to think generationally, not quarter-by-quarter—with short-term pressures. Carve out time for senior leaders away from the day-to-day, explicitly separate long-term moves from short-term KPIs, measure different things on the appropriate clock.
6. Many of the macro pressures facing publishing are now secular/structural, not cyclical. Waiting for a bounce back/correction may be wishful thinking. Who in the industry is radically rethinking structure, cost-base, product, unit economics in line with this?
7. If your company’s mission statement could apply equally to any of your major competitors, either the statement isn’t specific enough or your competitive positioning isn’t.
8. The FT used AI to rapidly develop an analysis tool, knowing the Epstein files were about to be released. As a result, they led news cycles. Execution speed and technical capability feed into product, attention, and narrative dominance. Preparedness compounds.
9. Power and influence are shifting from media institutions/gatekeepers to individual brands/fandoms. Does the role of a publisher shift from gatekeeper to ecosystem?
10. Cf. points 2 and 9 above, the frustrating genericisation of ‘Substack’ to mean any reasonably professional, monetised email newsletter, not just the Nazi-adjacent ones.
11. Is a podcast a replacement, a complement or a funnel for a book? Be clear about what the format is doing: directly monetising, engaging an audience, or building awareness.
12. One major podcast producer found that video podcasts on YouTube were a totally different audience to traditional podcast channels—no cannibalisation, completely accretive. Publishers should test adjacent platforms without assuming zero-sum effects.
13. One major book subscription product deliberately keeps potential paying customers on a waitlist, partly because it’s hard to forecast growth and demand alongside long publishing lead times, so this smooths out the bumps, and partly as scarcity marketing. Constraint is strategic, not just a reflection of internal limitations.
14. Only 7% of Instagram feeds is content from users’ friends: the rest is algorithmically determined. Publishers can chase trends or optimise for relevance, or look to more neutral channels like email.
15. Which AI failure modes does your professional indemnity insurance cover you for when something goes seriously wrong? What sort of documentation on your AI working practices and risk management will your insurer want to see before underwriting you?
16. A view from outside the industry: publishing attitudes and decisions are determined more by the legacy business model than by optimising customer experience (100% agree with this).

If you were at the conference, I’d love to know what resonated with you.