Once a signifier of luxury or novelty, custom products and services are now within reach of the everyday consumer, thanks to the rise of artificial intelligence, algorithm-led platforms, and the COVID-era digitisation boom. Today, everyone wants to be the main character of their brand experience.

People don’t spend hours browsing in bookstores anymore, instead relying on online recommendations. Consequently, publishers are having to rethink how to capture readers’ attention. Can Unbound – a platform that lets people influence and crowdfund the next great book – provide the answer?

Many people will have watched a show and hated the ending or a particular character’s choices. Now, Netflix’s interactive shows, beginning withPuss in Book, are giving people control over how a plot plays out. But how does letting viewers guide a story affect their relationship with the content?

Tech has transformed how we study, socialise and partake in sport – and it’s also having a huge impact on storytelling. Yet predictions that e-readers and video would supersede the written word have proven simplistic. So how exactly are the ways we write, publish and read stories changing?

In the late 2000s the future looked bleak for publishing; giant high street booksellers were going under as experts predicted e-readers, e-books and self-publishing would cause the demise of big publishing houses. So what’s happened? How did the industry adapt to remain alive and well?