The search for the next publishing sensation, and digital business model, dominated the agenda at the opening day of the annual London Book Fair on Tuesday.
The head of the industry trade body warned that simply "turning a book into a PDF" was not innovative enough to capture readers' imaginations and sales. "In any sector, in any industry, stagnation is death. If you stand still, you are probably in danger because someone will come along and take your consumers from you," said Richard Mollet, chief executive of the Publishers Association.
The fair brings together publishers and agents hoping to cut deals, as well as hopeful authors lured by seminars including "How to write a prize-winning book".
But innovation remains a preoccupation for an industry grappling with how to maintain sales in an age of iPads and the internet – a challenge underscored by the arrival of the UK games industry for the first time at the fair.
Jo Twist, head of UK Interactive Entertainment, the gaming trade body, said it made sense for book publishers to work with the £3bn British games industry.
"The games industry is full of the most fantastically skilled craftspeople ... and I think sometimes the book publishing industry don't necessarily know who to work with, who are the big games developers."
Kate Ho, founder and managing director of Interface3, an Edinburgh-based company that makes multiplayer games for tablet computers aimed at helping children to count and spell, said the games industry was responding to a younger generation that was used to "visceral experiences".
But one of the most talked-about announcements at the fair came from a conventional publisher, Penguin Random House, which announced that it was developing a consumer website that would allow readers to buy books through a network of 350 independent bookshops. My Independent Bookshop, to be launched to the public in May, will also allow readers to display and review their favourite books.
Michael Bhaskar, digital publishing director at Profile Books, said it could be a "win-win" for the whole publishing industry."It is a great idea … and could be massively important thing for independent bookshops."
Claire Fox, director of the Institute of Ideas, said she worried that publishers were losing faith in books: "I worry when the boss of Penguin Random House tells the Observer that animation will keep a child engaged with the printed page."
