Tech Forum 2020

While there have been conversations about the need to diversify the publishing workforce, less attention has been paid to the question of how the industry can ensure that talented publishing professionals from traditionally under-represented communities will choose to stay. In this double-length session, a panel of industry peers will discuss the distinctions between diversity and inclusion, the everyday barriers to inclusivity in the workplace, and how a career in Canadian publishing is navigated by BIPOC. Through illustrative first-person stories that have been gathered from the larger BIPOC community in publishing, this uniquely personal panel will provide points for audience reflection and discussion during a table-breakout session, and empower participants to work towards creating a more sustainable industry for everyone.

Kickstarter is a funding platform for creative works such as books, bookstores, podcasts, and more. In the past decade, more than $225M CAN has been pledged to publishing projects around the globe. But Kickstarter is also an extremely powerful platform for connecting with readers as well as other individuals and organizations that want to help you bring your idea to life. In this session, Kickstarter’s Head of Publishing, Margot Atwell, will explain how the platform works and share best practices for how to achieve success on Kickstarter.

S. Bear Bergman, publisher and founder of the inclusive children’s book publisher Flamingo Rampant, will tell the story of his press and how the Kickstarter community helped him sidestep conservative gatekeepers in publishing and bookselling and bring his line of inclusive children’s books into the world.

Both speakers will answer questions from the audience at the end of the session.

Both legacy industries and startups have pervasive and sinister microaggressions embedded in the backend of company systems, processes, and organizational structures that perpetuate discrimination and exclusion. Do you yearn to change company attitudes and processes when you’re not an executive decision-maker? Join Jas Der, a Delivery Manager at The Working Group and former publishing professional, for a case-driven exploration of how speaking up can make for big change in one's organization. Looking at their own experience at The Working Group, as well as case studies at Prada and One World, Jas will demonstrate how speaking up and taking risks can shake up the status quo.