Digital Book World 2011

From Monday to Wednesday this week, I was in New York attending the 2011 Digital Book World conference. Here's what the Sheraton's Metropolitan Ballroom looked like at Monday night's opening ceremonies cocktail hour:

The opening ceremonies also included some great 7x20x21 presentations (seven presenters each show 20 slides, and each slide can appear for no more than 21 seconds). One presenter was Sarah Wendell, who runs the website Smart Bitches Trashy Books:

Besides giving a presentation about her relationship with ebooks that was both funny and insightful, Sarah also blogged about her overall DBW experience. (She also made a DBW drinking game based on buzzwords that kept coming up.)

Tuesday and Wednesday were packed with panels and presentations on everything from metadata (a hot topic) to enhanced ebooks vs. apps to the evolving roles of agents and independent booksellers. If you weren't able to attend, never fear: Paul Biba of Teleread.com has posted great summaries of many of the panels. If you're at all interested in how the publishing industry is evolving to accommodate ebooks and other digital initiatives, definitely check them out!