Seminar and Workshop Ideas

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bookgazing

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Aug 17, 2010, 5:32:44 AM8/17/10
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Right think I've got everyone's rough ideas down so far. Anyone got
any other seminar ideas they'd like to add to the first day, or
workshop ideas for the second day?

First Day

Seminars

Critical thinking session about expanding your
reading perspective - with activities?

'Be Excellent to Each
Other' panel about building community and creating collaborative
initiatives

Book blogging and social repsonsibility

Ethics of book blogging

Book bloggers writing in
English, in a country where English is a second language

A panel about the range of book related endeavours and
channels bloggers could be aware of and forming connections with the
insiders in the industry


Second Day

Worskshops

Image editing workshop.
Coding and personalising your blog with graphic design
Search engine optimisation

Alex

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Aug 17, 2010, 8:00:49 AM8/17/10
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Jodie,

Some ideas, building on yours:
 

Evening -1

·         Meet and greet for London attendees and early arrivals

·         Cocktail and buffet dinner

 

 

Day 1

 

Brave New World - expanding your perspectives and readers

·         Future trends in reading/publishing – impact on book bloggers

·         Future trends in blogging in general – impact on book bloggers

·         Integration of wider social networks – the age of book twitter?

 

 

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - book blogging across borders and community building

·         Can we call ourselves a community?  What is our power? Do we have common objectives, what are they?

·         How can we work better together? - to do what exactly?

 

 

[insert literary title here] - Book blogging and social responsibility

·         Book related endeavours and channels we can use

·         How can we help?

o    Literacy programmes and projects by publishing industry, governments, NGOs, Foundations, European Commission, etc.

o    Getting authors promoted (especially new authors?)

 

 

Sense and sensibility - Ethics of book blogging

·         Relations with publishing industry

·         Relations with authors and publicists

·         Etiquette, copyright and plagiarism

 

+ dinner

 

 

Day 2

 

Building a Better Blog (parallel sessions, very practical, lots of tips and advice)

·         Improving readership: writing style & voice, creating content, schedules, comments & readers

·         Improving design: HTML, design, podcasting and vodcasting, search engine

 

+ Literary tours

Amy McKie

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Aug 17, 2010, 8:30:02 AM8/17/10
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I haven't been around much, but have been following all the threads. So many great ideas! I love the titles of the sessions :) 

As it is in London it would be great, I think, to make it 2 days instead of 1 - make it more worthwhile for people to go all that way. And then have literary tours on day 3, if possible. That might make it cost too much though?

Amy

Darren Owens

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Aug 17, 2010, 8:43:28 AM8/17/10
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We need to also keep in mind that if we are running this along side say The London Book Fair etc people will need to allow time for that especially for people that may only book a long weekend for example.

Which is why I like the idea of optional tours/events on the second day, then if you are tight for time, there's no pressure to attend a full second day, you can then slope off and do your own thing should you want/need to, perhaps meeting back up in the evening. But also if you do have more time to spare then you can fill your day. :)

Amy McKie

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Aug 17, 2010, 8:47:21 AM8/17/10
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Ahhhh OK yes if it is along with The London Book Fair or something like that one day would be perfect! 

And I would also recommend, if possible, the day BEFORE the other event starts would be the best. That way people don't have to choose one or the other. BBC in NYC was the day after and it was too bad because it meant that you often didn't get to meet others until the very end. I think people would get more out of it and make more lasting connections if they can meet other bloggers first. 

Amy

Darren Owens

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Aug 17, 2010, 8:52:01 AM8/17/10
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And I would also recommend, if possible, the day BEFORE the other event starts would be the best. That way people don't have to choose one or the other. BBC in NYC was the day after and it was too bad because it meant that you often didn't get to meet others until the very end. I think people would get more out of it and make more lasting connections if they can meet other bloggers first. 

Fantastic point, especially if we can get publishers involved in someway. Knowing who they are when you come across them later, would make such a difference!  

Amy McKie

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Aug 17, 2010, 8:52:31 AM8/17/10
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YES! Good point on that too :)

Nymeth

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Aug 18, 2010, 4:02:47 PM8/18/10
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Just a quick note to say I'm in love with all those literary titles :D
And yes, having it before the event sounds like a good plan. I'll be
back with some more concrete feedback later on :P

On Aug 17, 1:52 pm, Amy McKie <amy.mc...@gmail.com> wrote:
> YES! Good point on that too :)
>
> On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 8:52 AM, Darren Owens <darrenjow...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
> > And I would also recommend, if possible, the day BEFORE the other event
> >> starts would be the best. That way people don't have to choose one or the
> >> other. BBC in NYC was the day after and it was too bad because it meant that
> >> you often didn't get to meet others until the very end. I think people would
> >> get more out of it and make more lasting connections if they can meet other
> >> bloggers first.
>
> > Fantastic point, especially if we can get publishers involved in someway.
> > Knowing who they are when you come across them later, would make such a
> > difference!
>
> >> On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 8:43 AM, Darren Owens <darrenjow...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
> >>> We need to also keep in mind that if we are running this along side say
> >>> The London Book Fair etc people will need to allow time for that especially
> >>> for people that may only book a long weekend for example.
>
> >>>  Which is why I like the idea of optional tours/events on the second day,
> >>> then if you are tight for time, there's no pressure to attend a full second
> >>> day, you can then slope off and do your own thing should you want/need to,
> >>> perhaps meeting back up in the evening. But also if you do have more time to
> >>> spare then you can fill your day. :)
>
> >>> On 17 August 2010 13:30, Amy McKie <amy.mc...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >>>> I haven't been around much, but have been following all the threads. So
> >>>> many great ideas! I love the titles of the sessions :)
>
> >>>> As it is in London it would be great, I think, to make it 2 days instead
> >>>> of 1 - make it more worthwhile for people to go all that way. And then have
> >>>> literary tours on day 3, if possible. That might make it cost too much
> >>>> though?
>
> >>>> Amy
>
> >>>> On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 8:00 AM, Alex <alexandra.r...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >>>>> Jodie,
>
> >>>>> Some ideas, building on yours:
>
> >>>>> *Evening -1*
>
> >>>>> *·         **Meet and greet for London attendees and early arrivals***
>
> >>>>> *·         **Cocktail and buffet dinner*
>
> >>>>> * *
>
> >>>>> * *
>
> >>>>> *Day 1*
>
> >>>>> *Brave New World - expanding your perspectives and readers*
>
> >>>>> ·         Future trends in reading/publishing – impact on book
> >>>>> bloggers
>
> >>>>> ·         Future trends in blogging in general – impact on book
> >>>>> bloggers
>
> >>>>> ·         Integration of wider social networks – the age of book
> >>>>> twitter?
>
> >>>>> *Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - book blogging across borders
> >>>>> and community building*
>
> >>>>> ·         Can we call ourselves a community?  What is our power? Do we
> >>>>> have common objectives, what are they?
>
> >>>>> ·         How can we work better together? - to do what exactly?
>
> >>>>> *[insert literary title here] - Book blogging and social
> >>>>> responsibility*
>
> >>>>> ·         Book related endeavours and channels we can use
>
> >>>>> ·         How can we help?
>
> >>>>> o    Literacy programmes and projects by publishing industry,
> >>>>> governments, NGOs, Foundations, European Commission, etc.
>
> >>>>> o    Getting authors promoted (especially new authors?)
>
> >>>>> *Sense and sensibility - Ethics of book blogging*
>
> >>>>> ·         Relations with publishing industry
>
> >>>>> ·         Relations with authors and publicists
>
> >>>>> ·         Etiquette, copyright and plagiarism
>
> >>>>> * *
>
> >>>>> **
>
> >>>>> *+ dinner*
>
> >>>>> **
>
> >>>>> **
>
> >>>>> *Day 2*
>
> >>>>> *Building a Better Blog (parallel sessions, very practical, lots of
> >>>>> tips and advice)*
>
> >>>>> ·         Improving readership: writing style & voice, creating
> >>>>> content, schedules, comments & readers**
>
> >>>>> ·         Improving design: HTML, design, podcasting and vodcasting,
> >>>>> search engine
>
> >>>>> *+ Literary tours*

Alex

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Aug 19, 2010, 6:33:22 AM8/19/10
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Jodie,
 
Just read the draft industry letter (my suggestions attached). If we want some of them to speak at the Convention, we should adapt this letter from a “attend + sponsorship" to a “invitation to speak + sponsorship”. Re. letters to venue, on my side I’m ok with what you decide on the second comment, the most important was really to ensure there was no ambivalence in the “first successful” sentence. What do others think? They should be sent asap.

 

The next step is probably to agree on the draft programme so that we can put some names to the sessions and send out invitations (we might want to hold the letters to the industry until we know this).

 

Re. NGOs I was thinking of organisations/foundations like the ones I put on the list of possible venues. How can we as book bloggers contribute to their projects (e.g. spreading the word, call to action, volunteer, help new authors, etc)?
 
A

 

industry+emailAlex.docx

Alex

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Aug 24, 2010, 3:50:11 AM8/24/10
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Jodie,
 
Would you like to meet in person on Sunday, 19 September in London?
 
I'm going there with the Brussels Bronte Group :) and we'll do all the Bronte-ish activites on Saturday and reserved the Sunday for a meet-up with the Dickens group, which I could skip.
 
Let me know,
Alex

bookgazing

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Aug 24, 2010, 8:22:49 AM8/24/10
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Right time to get back to it :)

Alex all the changes to the industry invite make it a lot sharper, ta.
Think we should remove the first 'so you can make new connections'
part, as it is unnecessary repetion, thanks for spotting that. I will
hold onto the industry invites until we have a date and a venue.

Darren and Amy if we could get it running just before the London Book
Fair it would be perfect to have to before the event. We could run on
the weekend (no time off work for those attending) and LBF runs in the
week.

Program (really like the lit names for the seminars, shall we go with
that because it seems fun?):

Think you've pretty much hashed out spaces for blogger meet ups. Love
the idea of cocktails and buffet dinner on the first night.

I really like the idea of the Ethics panel, Social Responsibility
(which I think we could include an NGO speaker on if possible) and the
idea of combining community building with a look at blogging across
borders into one panel. What does everyone else think?

Oh and a note on numbers - we have 62 replies to the survey so far.
Not quite a hundred - does it seem like enough to proceed with? I
think once you add industry people to the mix it should provide a good
crowd.

Meetup: Alex I think the Sunday should be fine, but it's not that far
from mine to London on the train and the times are pretty regular so
just let me know what you want to fit around and I can probably pop
down from a couple of hours so you don't have to skip your meet up. Oh
and email me so let me know where to meet you!
> > A- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

Alex

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Aug 24, 2010, 9:33:59 AM8/24/10
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Anyone else in or close to London on the 19th?
 
Ana?

A

Nymeth

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Aug 25, 2010, 2:35:19 AM8/25/10
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I'd love to make it, but sadly on the 19th I'll be apartment hunting
like crazy in Manchester - or if things go really well, moving into my
new place :P Going anywhere that first week would be pretty
complicated :\ But Brontë group! That sounds like a lot of fun.

62 people sounds like a good number, yes, and it's unlikely that we'll
get many more replies to the survey at this point.

Also, yes, community building and blogging across borders in one panel
makes sense to me too.

Iris

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Sep 9, 2010, 2:19:29 PM9/9/10
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Hey!

I'm sorry that I've been away for so long, but I really couldn't find
the time (or didn't have an internet connection) sooner.
Anyway, I really like the literary names and the ideas so far. And can
I say that contacting an NGO sounds perfect. What kind of NGo would we
be thinking about? A literacy related one perhaps? But we could of
course always contact others as well, ecological friendly food and/or
something to do with women seems pretty popular in the blogosphere.
I do think the meetup beforehand sounds like a good plan. I do have a
weird question maybe, but at what time of the year is the London Book
Fair?
Also, I think 62 is an okay number. It might also be that once things
get more concrete more people will show interest.

bookgazing

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Sep 17, 2010, 2:22:16 AM9/17/10
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Hi everyone sorry to go so radio silent on you.

Based on the survey replies and peoples suggestions here I think that
the date for the event should be the weekend before the London Book
Fair (venue permitting). So that means the Friday meet up would be
Firday 8th April 2011, main convention on Sat 9th 2011 and tours etc
Sunday 10th 2011. Does this sound cool to everyone?

I've set us up a Twitter account (name Eurobookish) and today I'll
work on setting up a Wordpress site using the same name in the url
(European Book Blogger Convention is just too long to use in things
like this, but hopefully this will give us a consistant brand name
related to what we're doing). I'm wondering if anyone with design
skills would be able to take over the initial set up of the wordpress
site. We can all contribute to writing copy for the site, but as I
said design is really not my strong area. Once everything starts
rolling we could also use someone to volunteer to maintain the Twitter
feed - any takers?

Darren could you tweak the logo with the suggestions made on the forum
so we can see how that looks?

Kind Regards

Jodie

bookgazing

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Sep 22, 2010, 4:35:51 AM9/22/10
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And now we have a blog site: http://eurobookish.wordpress.com/ .

Anyone interested in taking on the design for the site?

Amy McKie

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Sep 22, 2010, 9:56:34 PM9/22/10
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I have NO design skills... sorry :S

Darren Owens

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Sep 25, 2010, 11:32:50 AM9/25/10
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Sorry for the late reply

Yes I'll try and have a play with the logo over the next few days.

More than happy to take a look at the website as well, as that's really only a matter of picking a decent theme and doing some tweeking.

Although someone else will need to take a shot at the copy writing (not my strong point!)

Darren

bookgazing

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Sep 27, 2010, 9:00:12 AM9/27/10
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Just so everyone is kept aware:

Darren's going to work on the logo and website deisgn.

Alex and I are working on the website copy now. We're also trying to
find venues - have sent emails out to Alex's best guesses for free
venues and have already received a few nos. This week we'll call the
venues we haven't heard from and see if we can find a venue for free.
If not then our back up plan is to book a pay for venue and find
sponsorship from publishers etc to cover the cost.

Things to helpwith if you can:

We need a good venue for the Friday get together - does anyone on the
group know of a nice, reasonably priced venue that could (in theory,
since we don't yet know how many people will come to that do) hold
30-35 people in London (and would not charge us a huge deposit for
making such a large booking)? Places with a private room would be
nice, but are not essential. I'll put this out over the email as well
to other people who said they could help with little bits of
organisation.

We could do with people populating the Google doc you should have
access to with names and contact details of publishers in London, so
we can send out to them for sponsorship if necessary and can invite
representatives to attend the conference day on Saturday to meet
bloggers.

Speak soon.

On 25 Sep, 16:32, Darren Owens <darrenjow...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Sorry for the late reply
>
> Yes I'll try and have a play with the logo over the next few days.
>
> More than happy to take a look at the website as well, as that's really only
> a matter of picking a decent theme and doing some tweeking.
>
> Although someone else will need to take a shot at the copy writing (not my
> strong point!)
>
> Darren
>
> > > - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -

Darren

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Oct 3, 2010, 8:25:09 AM10/3/10
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Darren Owens

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Oct 3, 2010, 8:36:45 AM10/3/10
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Oh and can you invite me in as an admin to the website so I can access the themes etc?

bookr...@bartsbookshelf.co.uk

Thanks!

bookgazing

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Oct 4, 2010, 6:09:47 AM10/4/10
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There you go you should be invited now.

I like the books replacing stars and the text inside the circle, but I
think the text style and colour you used in the original might be more
attractive - what does everyone else think?

On 3 Oct, 13:36, Darren Owens <darrenjow...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Oh and can you invite me in as an admin to the website so I can access the
> themes etc?
>
> bookrevi...@bartsbookshelf.co.uk
>
> Thanks!
>
> On 3 October 2010 13:25, Darren <darrenjow...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Okay, what do you think of this
>
> >http://eu-book-bloggers-con.googlegroups.com/web/eurobookish.jpg?gda=...

Darren

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Nov 27, 2010, 4:47:55 PM11/27/10
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Hi there!

Sorry about the delay in getting some work done on this, but I've been
having a play this evening with the blog this evening, why don't you
take a look at the results!:

http://eurobookish.wordpress.com/

Darren

Darren

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Dec 14, 2010, 4:32:54 PM12/14/10
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Hi there all,

Anybody had a chance to take a look at the site yet?

Darren

Amy McKie

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Dec 14, 2010, 4:37:04 PM12/14/10
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I think it looks great Darren! Fantastic job and thank you :)
--


bookgazing

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Jan 20, 2011, 5:27:00 AM1/20/11
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Hi everyone I think I'm going to have to pass co-ordinating this
project across to someone else. I'm just not finding the energy to get
it moving, with other projects coming up. Anyone who wants to take it
over can get in touch with me and I'll make sure you've got access to
all the different bits and bobs that are up right now.
> *
> *
> *Amy Reads athttp://amckiereads.wordpress.com*- Hide quoted text -
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