Our book publishing software recommendations for small presses have changed a lot since 2009. The growth in eBook sales and the increasing use of distribution services for order fulfillment has reduced the demand for traditional publishing specific sales processing software such as AnyBook, Publishers Assistant, Cats Pajamas and Dashbook.
Software vendors have repostioned their products to reflect these trends. The Publishers Assistant accounting software is now free with the vendor making money through the sale of their ONIX software and webservices. DashBook is now focused on royalty processing with sales order processing available as a seperate module for only $99.
What software does a small press need? Edwin Fager of Kensai International recommends that new publishers start with;
- Microsoft Office 20101 Homes and Business with Word, Excel and Outlook.
- Intuit’s QuickBooks Pro (if you sell only digital books) or QuickBooks Premier (if you need to manage inventory) to track revenue and expenses. If your revenue exceeeds $1M purchase QuickBooks Enterprise.
- Title information software such as OnixEdit or Couplet (from Publishers Assistant) to collect your title information and send that information to distributors such as Amazon, Ingram, and Barnes & Nobles.
- Software such as AnyBook, DashBook, Publishers Assistant or Easy Royalties to generate royalty statements. Which software is best? We recommend that you try the trial version of each product to find the one that best meets your requirements.
Edwin suggests that well financed publishers look at Acumen Book. Acumen is a fully intergrated ERP solution (accounting + sales + inventory + marketing + ONIX title information + ecommerce) used by 180+ publishers with revenue of $1M to $30M+. Sourcebooks, named one of the largest independent publishers in the USA, started with a single user Acumen system and still uses Acumen to run their business.
Acumen Book
Cost: About $18,000+
Acumen Book is for “well financed” publishers that have a realistic plan for rapid growth. Acumen is an integrated ERP application that handles accounting, inventory, royalties, sales and marketing in one solution. Acumen has optional modules for on-line credit card processing, ecommerce, digital distribution, subscriptions, telemarketing and more. This book publishing solution is used by over 180 publishers with revenue ranging from $1M to $50M. You can start with a small 2 user system and grow to 10, 20 or 50+ users.
Website: www.acumenbook.com
Opinion: Most new publishers should look at the lower cost solutions presented below; however, if your company is well financed and you expect to obtain annual revenue of $1M+ within the year you should look at Acumen. Why? Used properly, it can dramatically improve the productivity of your staff and help you market your books.
AnyBook
Cost: $89 to $729 USD
Carefully crafted and well tested, AnyBook is the winner of a number of shareware awards and is highly regarded in the publishing and software worlds. Designed for small presses and self-publishers, it generates invoices and billing statements, keeps track of inventory, handles book returns, produces sales reports, generates royalty statements, records customer payments, tracks consignment items, and creates mailing lists.
Website: www.ronwatters.com/RonSoft5.htm
Opinion: We like AnyBook for its large feature set, frequent updates and low price. Its perfect for the small publisher or self published author just starting out and offers functionality not offered by competitive products. You can start with Version I of their software; however, you will need Version III ($239 for single user, $269 for multi-user networked version) if you want to generate royalty statements. You can upgrade to more powerful versions as your company grows.
DashBook
Cost: $249 to $3,999 USD (Optional Sales Processing Module)
DashBook is a royalty software solution for small publishers. An optional sales order processing module is available for managing your inventory, preparing invoices and statements and tracking sales data. A large number of reports are available to provide status on any part of your business at a moment’s notice. DashBook has a dashboard that gives you an overview of your sales and receivables. A free 30 day trial version is available.
Website: www.dashbook.com
Opinion: An easy to use and affordable solution for small presses. Dashbook has a modern user interface and is frequently updated based on user requests.
Easy Royalties
Cost: $500 to $10,000 USD (Optional Rights Management and Permissions Management Modules)
Easy Royalties is an affordable and powerful royalty solution for small to medium sized book publishers with 20 to 2,000 titles. It can handle complex royalty contracts. You can import authors, titles, royalty contracts and sales and and export payment information to your accounting software. You can start with a small 50 title license and upgrade it as your title list grows.
Optional modules for rights marketings and permissions management. The That’s Rights module helps you market subsidiary rights (i.e. translation) rights and collect the monies due on rights sales. The permissions module tracks permissions given and permissions received (i.e. you ask permissioin to include content from another publication in your title).
That’s Rights and Easy Royalties have clients in more than 10 countries. In the United States the New York Museum of Modern Art is one of their larger clients.
A free 30 day trial version is available.
Website: www.easyroyaltiesusa.com
Opinion: Start with a 50 title system and upgrade your license to 100, 200, or a 1000+ titles as your company grows. You can manage subsidiary rights sales (foreign translation rights) with their optional rights management module and permissions with their That’s Permissions module. Publishers in the United States use Easy Royalties with QuickBooks, Dynamics GP, MAS90, PeopleSoft and SAP accounting software.
Publishers Assistant
Cost: Free! (Optional webservices and Onix title information software)
Used by about 200 publishers with with 1 to 100 titles. Handles royalties, commissions, consignment, inventory, review copies, backorders, standing orders, subscriptions, and other issues specific to the publishing industry. The single user version is Free! Upgrade to the multi-user version and get unlimited telephone support along with Couplet (ONIX title information software) for just $35/month.
Read more about the advantages of Publisher’s Assistant.
Publishers Assistant has two affordable optional modules/services for publishers. Publisher Assistant Web Services provides publishers with a turnkey ecommerce ready website and their Couplet software generates Onix title information files..
You can download a demo of the Publishers’ Assistant software free of charge.
Web Site: www.pubassist.com
Opinion: We like Publishers Assistant for its price (it’s free), ease of use, their focus on the book publishing industry and their Wiki. Wiki is an online guide to how to use their software that is updated by users and developers.