Software Selection
Book publishers should
keep in mind three recommendations when looking for software;
First, each software solution has its own
strengths and weaknesses. Select the solution that best meets your
requirements.
If you pick, pack and ship your own
orders select software with strong warehouse management functionality.
If rights earnings are important to you
look for software with rights management functionality.
Second, no package does everything that you want it to.
You will find a package that does 90% of what you want, and the
other 10% will be in another package that costs twice as much or
requires a modification of the software. The key
question is - How much is that extra 10% worth to you over the next 3
to 5 years.
Third, compare the features and price of
several book publishing software packages for
you may not know what you need until you see it.
Some solutions offer integrated title
information management. This means that they can store information about
a title; such as short description, long description, table of contents,
and reviews, and transmit the information to business partners such as
Amazon, Barnes & Nobles, Borders, Ingram and Baker & Taylor.
Some offer editorial planning
functionality. Publishers can create editorial goals - such as 4 titles
in Nursing for 2008, 6 tiles in 2009, and track results against these
goals.
Some offer integrated accounting
functionality. This means that your financial reports are automatically
updated with sales, royalty expenses, and cost of goods sold as each
sale is made.
Although we can not recommend a package without studying a
client's needs we can offer the following general observations ;
New Publishers
New publishers need to spend most of
their resources on producing and marketing new titles.
We recommend advise new publishers to start
with QuickBooks Premier for their accounting needs and complement this
with publishing specific software such as AnyBook, DashBook, Publishers
Assistant or Easy Royalties once they have 10 or more titles in print.
Publishers should consider using title
information software such as the
ONIX Central Title Store (priced at $315) to store and send title
information to major retailers and wholesalers.
-
AnyBook offers the best distribution
management functionality.
-
DashBook features powerful analytics.
-
Publishers Assistant comes with an
ONIX title information database and has an ecommerce solution
option.
-
Easy Royalties is the most powerful
royalty solution we know of for small publishers.
Medium Publishers
The book publishing
software solution
selected most often by publishers with sales in the range of $2M to $10M is
Acumen. Publishers in this market segment are also
choosing Cats Pajamas, Élan and iPUB. Acumen offers more functionality, Cats
Pajamas is easier to use. Élan is a hosted solution and iPUB is a relatively new product with
aggressive pricing.
There is no one software solution that is
overwhelmingly selected by publishers with sales of $10M thru $30M USD.
Bookmaster and Vista are the leading competitors in this market segment.
Bookmaster is favored by publishers focused on distribution and Vista by
publishers focused on selling digital products.
Acumen, Eclipse (with their Dynamics GP solution), knk (with their
Dynamics NAV solution), Global Turnkey (owned by Klopotek), iPUB, the Media Services Group and the Trilogy Group
are also competing for sales in this market.
Large Publishers
Publishers with sales over $30M should look at
Bookmaster, Klopotek and Vista. If your sales are above $100M you should add SAP
to this list.
Bookmaster has a
reputation for rapid implementations of complex systems and superior
warehouse management functionality.
Klopotek is known for their strong
rights, royalty, editorial and production management
functionality. Their
production cockpit and
information viewpoint offer features not found in competitive
products.
Vista solution is the most
focused on online book marketing and digital publishing.
Bookmaster and Vista regard each other as
their primary competitors, and are usually the last two vendors
remaining in an RFP process where the publisher is looking for a full
featured ERP & distribution management solution.
Updated: May 02, 2009
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