IBS Bookmaster - Publishing Distribution Software
The publishing and book distribution industry is experiencing radical change. The old chain from author to publisher to printer to book shop, with a standard set of publisher-friendly contracts, is disappearing. People have so many book buying options it’s hard to keep up.
Amazon turned things upside down. Google Books might do it again. People buy best sellers with their groceries and find academic texts online before printing them at home. It’s a whole new world. Oh, and some people still like book shops.
Matching the product to the customer is the other art of publishing. The physical product doesn’t change very much but people’s emotional response does. Some books do well in independents, others in supermarkets. The end result is marketing has become fragmented and forecasting demand needs a little science.
The integrated nature of the publishing supply chain means that additional factors like editorial, book production, royalties’ management and academic adoptions are tightly linked to sales and distribution. It is the efficient management, control and integration of these essential publishing requirements that can drive value and profitability into the supply chain.
Publishing Distribution Challenge
Dealing with online stores or supermarkets requires automated systems and you can improve revenues with demand planning and forecasting. The supermarkets have 6% of the consumer market but vend 80% of best sellers. They require huge discounts and so your margin relies on keeping costs to a minimum. This means handling more areas of the supply chain with a single system that can also give you returns management and sophisticated warehouse management system.
You can accelerate supply using SMI (supplier managed inventory). Your systems communicate using ONIX (an industry standard) with your suppliers and customers to automate orders and delivery processes. You can extract demand forecasts from customers’ systems and plan your production schedules and purchases more efficiently to drive down costs.
Customers want access to a searchable catalogue with stock and delivery information. The web is the obvious route. Setting up web access is the first step to a consumer sales channel. Simply integrate web management and e-commerce with an inventory management system to open up a revenue stream for backlist titles.
Distribution software success
IBS Bookmaster helps you handle the complexities of a fragmented market. It allows you to manage the book production process and relationships with authors, as well as deal with high-speed, high-volume merchants while still being able to sell single books on your own website.
We understand your business and we know the need for flexible, integrated systems.
You need editorial and production systems to reduce the costs of creating books
For fast, efficient and accurate payment of author’s royalties and management of contracts you need a powerful system that is fully integrated with production and sales
For high volumes and fast turn-around, you need precision warehouse management to keep costs down. You need industry standard ONIX (electronic data interchange) to automate orders and deliveries.
You need inventory management software that speaks the language of the web. You need searchable databases that can be updated with lead-time and price information in real time. You also need integrated e-commerce software.
Because your business keeps changing, you need to be agile. You need software that can work with RF tagging and pick-to-light technology.
With the array of channels for selling books, you need to keep track of demand, measuring customer response and forecasting sales.
Your business and our technology
IBS’ experts have years of experience working in the publishing industry so we understand what it’s like to be a modern bookseller. We build that knowledge into our technology. And because we have a one-on-one relationship with all our customers, we learn exactly what you need.
IBS Bookmaster enables speedy, seamless automation of warehousing, inventory management, e-commerce and demand planning. It is modular, so it can adapt as your business changes.