In the final weeks of the year, CCC’s podcast series is looking back at the past twelve months.

As COVID-19 spread around the earth in the early months of 2020, digital disruption followed close behind. The results for publishing are decidedly mixed.

Local newspapers have suffered when local businesses shuttered. By contrast, book sales surged, though the industry faces disruption from consolidation.

In mid-year, a wave of protests against police shootings of black men and women focused attention on systemic racism and its damaging cost to society. Publishers, among many other organizations, seized the chance for self-examination.

In this second episode of a three-part review for 2020, we learn how publishers are navigating through storms of change.

Special guests include Ken Doctor, founder of Lookout Local; Mark Gottlieb, literary agent with Trident Media Group; Lisa Luedeke,
publisher and director at Corwin Press; and Kevonne Holloway, Vice President, Education Content, Elsevier.

“The editors of the Oxford English Dictionary have admitted they despaired of choosing a single word-of-the-year for 2020. Instead, the OED noted the memorable addition to our vocabularies of many words: lockdown, unmute, coronavirus (of course) – and my favorite, Blursday,” says CCC’s Chris Kenneally.

“How do we best respond in the face of twelve tumultuous months? Can words ever capture events in a satisfying way? The best place to start is to start.”