The O'Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing conference kicked off in New York, and it's filled with big thinkers trying to figure out the innovative ways technology can save books. GalleyCat has the video of mediabistro.com founder Laurel Touby's entire presentation, "Bringing Sexy Back: The Book Party in the Digital Age." "There are no tools here," writes Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. "Just about everyone is curious and interesting, and everyone does a little something different. But if I were going to make one recommendation, it would be this: there need to be more sessions about readers. As in, the actual humans who READ the ebooks." Booksquare surveyed female ebook readers and says publishers need to reach out to them: "They get the impermanence of the technology, they often see their purchases as 'rentals', they feel like, in some cases, they're getting less book for their money. Oh, and while they're buying books, they're also dealing with family budgets, kids, and dozens of other pressures on their purses. You want to sell more books, they want to buy more books."

Publishing Trends Blog has ten takeaways from social marketing guru Chris Brogan's panel, including, "It's all about the fans. 'It is always awesome when the would-be famous person celebrates the audience, rather than the other way around,' says Brogan. 'That never goes out of style.'" If you want more, the Tools of Change for Publishing Blog says that The Best of TOC, including writers from around the Web, will soon be available for free download.