KITABOO Masterclass
Building a Global Publishing House What You Need to Know
A Frankfurter Buchmesse Masterclass, hosted online by the fair on 30 September 2026.See it on the Frankfurter Buchmesse programme
Richard Charkin and David Taylor have spent their careers getting books to readers across borders. In this full recording they take on the question the industry keeps circling: what does it actually take to build a publishing house that works at a global scale, and what does digital change about the answer?
- Recorded
- 30 September 2026
- Length
- 62 minutes
- Moderator
- Emma House
- Access
- Free to watch
The recording plays through YouTube and follows your cookie preferences. The opening image is illustrative.
The conversation
What they know between them is not in any textbook.
It comes from doing it, at the highest level, across decades. Frankfurter Buchmesse hosted this Masterclass a week before the 2026 fair, and Emma House kept the questions practical: why great content still needs a distribution plan, how print on demand and ebooks have changed the sums, which rights to hold on to, and where the next readers are.
Attendees sent in questions throughout, so a good part of the hour is the panel answering the problems publishers brought with them.
In the conversation
Two careers. One hour.
Guest expert
Richard Charkin
Advisory Board Member, KITABOO
A book and journal publisher for more than five decades, responsible for businesses in China, India, Mexico, Qatar, Australia, the US, the UK, Ireland, Germany and many other countries. He has held senior roles at Bloomsbury, Macmillan and Oxford University Press, is a former President of both the International Publishers Association and the UK Publishers Association, and was awarded an OBE in 2024 for services to publishing and literature.
Guest expert
David Taylor
Advisory Board Member, KITABOO
In bookselling and distribution since 1983, when he started at Blackwell’s bookshop in Oxford. He spent over 20 years at Ingram, responsible for the international expansion of its market-leading print-on-demand service, with developments, joint ventures and partnerships in over 15 countries and regions of the world.
Moderator
Emma House
Advisory Board Member, KITABOO
An international publishing consultant at Oreham Group and a former deputy CEO of the Publishers Association.
Host
Darshit Shah
Segment Lead – Marketing, KITABOO
Opened the session and ran the closing audience Q&A.
Inside the hour
Go straight to what you need.
Pick a chapter and the recording starts at that moment.
From the audience
What publishers asked.
Polled during the session
What the room said.
61%were still in one main market
Where is your organization right now on international expansion? 33 answers.
Half were still working out their digital setup
How would you describe your current eBook and digital distribution capability? 22 answers.
No single challenge dominated distribution
What is your biggest challenge in distributing content across markets? 22 answers.
Live polls during the session, with KITABOO staff left out. These are small samples: a snapshot of the room, not a survey of the industry.
- 158
- registered
- 70
- joined live
- 4.1 / 5
- attendee rating20 survey responses; 15 rated it 4 or 5
After the session
Still working out your digital setup? So was half the room.
See how KITABOO helps publishers create, publish and distribute DRM-protected content across multiple devices. Book a demo and we’ll walk you through it on your own content.