Posted by Maleeha Mir on 9 June 2025, in Event reports, News
Photos by Daniel Solomons, Words by Chris Russell
You can listen to an audio recording of this event via this link.
On Tuesday 3 June, Byte The Book returned to the Century Club for a distinctly future-facing discussion, with a four-strong panel sharing their theories on where the industry’s next bestsellers will come from. Input came from Elizabeth Counsell, Literary Agent at Northbank Talent Agency, Polly Osborn, Publishing Strategy & Communications Director at Simon & Schuster UK, Anna Disley, Deputy CEO of New Writing North and Arsim Shillova, CEO of Libraro.
Our panel from left to right: Elizabeth Counsell, Polly Osborn, Justine Solomons, Anna Disley, and Arsim Shillova.
Byte founder Justine Solomons opened the floor by asking each panellist how they find and connect with writers in today’s ever-changing landscape. Elizabeth explained that, as with most agents, she still acquires many of her authors through submissions, but added “I’m not afraid to go out there and find people”. She cited anthologies – such as those compiled by the creative writing departments at Goldsmiths and City University – as a common source for new talent, along with reader activity on social media. “This is still a competitive industry,” she reflected, “but the gatekeepers are changing. Publishers are paying more attention to readers, and to which books are resonating with people”.
Arsim Shillova opens up about the challenges and vision that sparked the creation of Libraro.
Polly picked up this thread, placing emphasis on the need to level the playing field in an industry which has long been regarded as elitist. “Publishing has an accessibility problem,” she stated, “and there’s a sense that you have to know people, you have to know the route. But the industry is slowly democratising”. She pinpointed BookTok, for instance, as a powerful tool in this process, highlighting its role in the runaway success of Colleen Hoover, a Simon & Schuster author. “Colleen had always been a strong mid-list name for us, but then on BookTok, we began to see people connecting very emotionally with her stories – filming themselves crying while reading her novels – and it was fascinating to watch that happen, to see her engagement growing week on week, and her sales grow with it. Her fans weren’t reacting to some review in the Guardian … this was a real, visceral response to the reading experience”.
Polly Osborn detailing her experiences of working with authors and on a variety of books at Simon & Schuster UK.
Expanding on this idea, Justine asked the panellists about what, in their view, needs to change next in publishing. Anna, whose Arts Council-funded organisation New Writing North seeks out and develops promising writers from the north of England, pointed out that “talent is everywhere, but opportunity isn’t”. NWN, she explained, exists to disrupt the rigid structures that can make this London-centric industry so impenetrable, opening it up not only to writers from historically neglected regions of the country, but also to those from working class backgrounds. Arsim echoed this sentiment while talking about his struggles to get a book published in 2017, and how the experience inspired him to found Libraro, a community-driven platform that unites writers with readers, allowing those readers to influence what gets published and guiding industry professionals towards future bestsellers. Like Anna, he felt that publishers are missing out, needlessly, on a large pool of talent, and that the internet could be part of the solution. “The more I looked into it, the more I realised that this was something technology could potentially support. We want to look after people who write and share their stories with the general public, because we all love stories, and there’s so much content out there that we simply don’t get to see”.
Elizabeth Counsell offers her perspective on supporting authors in the ever-changing and highly competitive world of publishing.
Finally, the discussion took an inevitable swing towards AI, exploring both the opportunities and dangers that the technology presents. Reigniting the topic of accessibility, Elizabeth praised the potential for AI to “take power away from the more guarded places and redistribute it to people who haven’t had it before” – which, pointed out Anna, could help us to ensure “that we aren’t just publishing in our own image”.
Anna Disley explains why the traditional publishing model must evolve to ensure that writers from all backgrounds have the opportunity to be published and their stories heard.
On the other hand, each of the panellists was acutely aware of the fierce debate around the unauthorised use of authors’ work to train AI platforms, and how this is already throttling livelihoods. For Arsim, the answer is to use AI primarily to preserve human writing, harnessing its potential to establish and distribute micro-payments. Polly agreed, confessing to “feeling a bit Jekyll and Hyde” about artificial intelligence. “As a publisher,” she said, “it’s clear to me that AI will speed up processes, but I also spend a lot of time campaigning for the protection of our copyright. This is fundamental not only to our business model, but to the future of the creative arts”. In the best-case scenario, she theorised, AI won’t threaten the industry – it will super-charge it. “I’m very pro tech,” she said, in summary, “but even more than that, I’m pro-human. Let’s make it work for us, not the other way round”.
Our audience listening attentively to the panel.
Thank you to Libraro for sponsoring our event and to the Century Club for hosting us!
You can find many more photos from this panel from our online album 'New Paths to Publishing - Sponsored by Libraro' here!
If you're not already a member of Byte The Book you can join us from £30 a month here.
