What to expect from the SYP’s upcoming Edinburgh conference

Posted on April 13, 2026 in UK

One of the SYP’s biggest annual events is coming up and you won’t want to miss it. On Saturday 25 April 2026, the SYP Scotland conference will return to Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh, the same venue where it was held in 2025. The event typically brings together publishing professionals and other people interested in the industry for a day of thought-provoking panel discussions and networking as well as some bookish exhibitors and a guest performer.

Keynote speakers, panels and more…

The 2026 conference will include keynote speakers Duncan Lockerbie (Lumphanan Press and Tapsalteerie) and Emma Barnes (Consonance) and performer Len Pennie (Poyums; Poyums Annaw).

You’ll attend sessions including:

Buzzwords: a double-edged sword?
What makes a good marketing campaign?
Reaching wider audiences
Pitching: yourself and your books
Lesser known roles in publishing
Book swap break with Matchbox

Intrigued? Find out more and book your ticket for the 2026 Scotland conference

What was last year’s event like?

Read on for insights from last year’s event, giving a taste of what’s to come this year…

What is the future of storytelling in the digital age? This was the main question posed by the 2025 conference. Artificial intelligence (AI) was a common thread through many of the panels and keynotes. ‘From Words to Worlds: The Impact of Translation in a Connected World’ addressed the use of AI in translation, which is already causing translators to lose work and their livelihoods. However, the panellists were adamant that only a human can produce a quality translation with a true appreciation of nuance and emotions.

Later, ‘Trust and Transparency: Ethical Standards in Publishing’ emphasised the importance of transparency in situations where publishers do decide to use AI – for example, it can fix errors in audiobooks without the input of the original narrator, but they argued this should be declared openly as it’s essentially impersonating someone’s voice.

In ‘Off the Beaten Press: The Rise of Self-Publishing and Small Presses’, we learned that indie publishing was on the rise thanks to technologies such as ebooks, Print On Demand, social media marketing and crowdfunding. Going it alone comes with a lot of challenges as the individual or small team has to perform the roles of all the publishing departments, but freelancers can fill the gaps and membership organisations can provide support.

‘The Publishing Metamorphosis: Manuscript to Market’ focused on the role of sales, publicity and marketing in the lifecycle of a book. We learned that selling books is often a filtering process: publishers’ sales reps pitch a selection of titles to bookshops based on what would suit that particular shop but the bookseller can only choose a few of those to stock, with small independent shops having much more limited display space than the larger chains.

‘There’s a thriving community of publishers (and students and lecturers on publishing-related degree courses) in Scotland and this event was the perfect way to bring them together.’

A mid-afternoon networking session and a trip to a nearby pub in the evening gave us a chance to make new connections and catch up with existing ones: something that’s not always easy when you’re based outside of London. Despite being more spread out than their counterparts down south, there’s a thriving community of publishers (and students and lecturers on publishing-related degree courses) in Scotland and this event was the perfect way to bring them together. Edinburgh is also easily accessible from cities in the north of England such as Newcastle, Durham, York, Carlisle and Lancaster. I’d recommend SYP Scotland’s flagship event to anyone involved in publishing or the SYP, but especially those who live, work or study in the north of the UK.

Buy your ticket here!

Written by Emily Dunn