Introduction to publishing management systems
If you don’t currently have access to a publishing management system (sometimes called title management
, which bothers me because titles are the thing you put on the front of the cover. Precision matters!), it seems almost impossible to find out what one does. What does it look like? How do publishers use it? Why do they use it?
We realised that we could open the door a little and show some of how publishing works. When we offered to host a virtual Introduction to publishing management software
on Zoom, we sold out 100 tickets plus a waiting list that same day.
It’s clear that this information is something people are hungry for, but they don’t know where to get it. So, we’re going to provide it!
First, we’d like to give a shout out to our blog and our system documentation for more in depth information on everything we cover here. It’s all publicly accessible, so you can dive into any area that interests you. Even if you aren’t lucky enough to end up using Consonance, the principles of how these systems work are the same, so spend a little time getting familiar with it. We’ve organised some of the basic documentation in Consonance 101 and if you want to challenge yourself, move on to Consonance Expert.
We’d like to highlight these particular articles for insight:
- You don’t need special software to store data properly
- A non-technical, beginners’ guide to ONIX for Books
- The ONIX Standard is not very standard
- Where and how data gets into the supply chain
- Nine hard-earned pieces of advice for publishing start-ups
Here is the video of the webinar we ran, with Consonance CEO Emma Barnes talking through some of the top level ideas behind publishing management software, with insights into bibliographic data management, ONIX, contracts, rights and royalties, and workflow management.
It’s all about What good publishers want
:
Links to some of the resources we mentioned:
Resources that some top book publishers point their new and aspiring employees to:
- Publishers Association careers page
- An excellent round up of industry resources from @AinChiara
- @R_Nash’s What is the Business of Literature? with sentences like,
… the book is a technology so pervasive … that it reaches the status of Nature
- @kevin2kelly’s Better than Free with points such as:
Trust cannot be copied… It cannot be downloaded.
. - @JaneFriedman for the business of publishing
- For editors: Harts Rules and Judith Butcher’s Copyediting
Communities to check in on:
- We highly recommend BookMachine for training, resources and support
- Join a newly launched Facebook group for publishing hopefuls
- Hashtags: #BookJobTransparency #WorkInPublishing and #JobsInBooks for employers/roles/salaries/people to follow
- Interested in production? There’s a Twitter account for that @_prod_squad
And we’d love to add other resources to this blog post, or enhance the ones we’ve got. If you’ve got something to add or to ask or that needs clarifying, please contact us! @consonance_app, @has_many_books or @saramoohead on Twitter.
Are your current systems sabotaging your growth ambitions? Are you hungry to implement new business models, but concerned you lack the strong administrative foundations needed for innovation?
We're always amazed at how resigned publishers have had to become to the low bar in publishing management systems. Demand more.
Contact us via our contact form, or email us.