2023 was another year of big changes and industry shifts for publishing. Crucial conversations on AI dominated the year, providing food for thought for organizations across the trade on the future of the industry.
In this past year, perhaps more than ever, we came to realize the transformative role technology plays in realizing workflow efficiencies and improving productivity, ensuring publishers are successful for years to come.
Modernizing ways of working, identifying and embracing new challenges and opportunities more confidently and quickly, and taking advantage of the efficiencies technology can bring will only strengthen everything publishers do. We're thrilled to be contributing to these developments at such an exciting time for the industry, resolving publishers' challenges and helping to drive change in 2024 and beyond.
#BiblioSuite similarly has undergone some exciting developments to keep up with these rapidly changing times. 2023 saw BiblioSuite being put to use by our wide range of client publishers across entire workflows. Many are using one or multiple slices of the software tactically to solve specific problems, or plug gaps where a solution isn't already in place – seeing efficiencies and time savings blossom.
2024 will see the introduction of BiblioFlow, an innovative addition to BiblioSuite, that will bring assets and metadata to the forefront of publishers’ workflows, simplifying the process for users to discover, view, access, and utilize digital media files. By optimizing content utilization and streamlining digital workflows, BiblioFlow promises to revolutionize publishers’ day-to-day operations.
Our highlights
"2023 was an exceptional year for us and I’m delighted to celebrate our remarkable achievements. Our revenue grew by over 22% and we welcomed 12 new customers including notable names like Disney, Elsevier, and HarperCollins, underscoring our commitment to excellence and innovation, and solidifying our position as a leader in our field."
- Phil Turner, CEO & Co-Founder, Virtusales Publishing Solutions
BiblioSuite community successes
Virtusales is dedicated to continuous improvement and we constantly strive to enhance our support for our client publishers. We are delighted to share just some of the successes we’ve achieved with our client publishers during 2023.
Disney went live with Bibliographic, Production, DAM, Subrights and Sales, replacing their 25+ year old in-house system in a 9-month timespan.
Elsevier went live with BiblioSuite providing their users with a connected, intuitive, and reliable tool to manage their diverse product landscape.
Sage began a project to implement BiblioSuite, aiming for a fully integrated, configurable, single source of truth for product metadata across all their products and services.
HarperCollins selected Virtusales to centralize their acquisitions and product metadata workflows. They will be able to create P&L estimates, set up contracts and manage their product data internationally.
Prompted by Amazon’s anticipated arrival in South Africa in 2024, Penguin Random House SA has selected BiblioSuite to elevate the quality and timeliness of their metadata feeds to maximize sales - becoming one of the first publishers in the region to supply an ONIX feed to the retail giant.
The MIT Press has chosen BiblioSuite to simplify their systems landscape for books and journals, by consolidating 5 pre-existing systems into a single, comprehensive platform to gain huge efficiencies across the business, from product management and DAM, to royalties and sales analytics.
Edinburgh University Press selected BiblioSuite to replace its legacy system for product management, production, contracts, rights and royalties, sales analytics, and digital asset management.
And long-established academic publisher, Mohr Siebeck has chosen BiblioSuite’s scalable and highly configurable system to harness advanced metadata management and streamline their catalog creation workflows.
Virtusales at industry events
The team around the world were pleased to attend a huge number of both in-person and online events this year.
We were joined by Andreas Arnold, CIO & CTO at Penguin Random House UK; Nick Wright, CIO at Bonnier Books UK; Brendan Goss, CIO at Hachette UK; and James Long, COO at Pan Macmillan at The London Book Fair to discuss the rapidly-evolving role of technology in publishing, and its increasing prominence and importance in day-to-day publishing processes to further efficiencies. Read more about the session here.
The Virtusales team was heavily involved in delivering a number of sessions this year at the Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP) Annual Meeting. EVP, North America, Rodney Elder, and Director of Academic, Mark Collins presented on various topics all focussed on leveraging technology for sharing scholarly content, streamlining workflows and managing any saleable product to meet current and future challenges – including open access requirements.
We were also pleased to attend Frankfurter Buchmesse, Göteborg Book Fair, STM Week 2023, as well as the STM Conference in October, the Publishers' Licensing Services (PLS) Conference, IG Digital Jahrestagung 2023, the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Summit, the AUPresses Annual Meeting, the Book Industry Study Group Annual Meeting of Members 2023, the Literacy Partners Gala Dinner, and the ALPSP Annual Conference and Awards to name just a few.
The team also attended and sponsored Publishers Weekly's AI Conference and the Independent Publishers Guild Autumn Conference – as well as their Metadata Award for 2023, where we were pleased to support and recognize independent publishers who are committed to enhancing their metadata and product management processes.
Taking on Inventory Management
In November, we launched our latest White Paper, which shares insights on the changing landscape of inventory management – and the importance of technological support when it comes to elevating your systems for the future.
We are immensely grateful to our contributors Stuart Anderson (Penguin Random House), Ken Brooks (Treadwell Media Group), Charles Cooper (Arcturus Publishing Limited), Cathy Felgar (Princeton University Press), Gareth Jarrett (Maverick Publishing Specialists), Martin Klopstock (Kogan Page), John Normansell (Manchester University Press) and James Powell (Boydell & Brewer) for sharing their collective wisdom on what publishers most need to know now – from innovations in print and prioritizing sustainability, to cost-efficient supply chain management, and developments in AI technologies.
Connecting at BiblioU 2023
We were delighted to once again bring together hundreds of publishing professionals at our customer-exclusive event, the BiblioU Annual Meeting 2023. Representatives from world-leading publishers including Disney, Elsevier, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, Harvard University Press, Macmillan, Oxford University Press, Penguin Random House, Princeton University Press, and Sage came together to gain insights into the latest developments and practical advice on how to maximize their use of BiblioSuite.
As well as our wide range of online sessions – this year featuring insights into AI, integrations, optimization, digital asset management, audiobooks, and the value of rights in publishing – select North American-based customers gathered in-person to watch the online event, network with peers, and gain one-on-one consultation and training with our team.
“Very useful and enjoyable event. It was great to have a preview of future developments for BiblioSuite, all of which look set to help publishers improve their efficiency and effectiveness. Lovely also to be able to network and share thoughts with industry experts. Thank you, Rod and team.” – Martin Hill, Director, Kogan Page and Founder, MPHC
Read more about why the combination of cutting-edge software plus a thriving and engaged community just works for BiblioSuite users.
We're looking forward to another exciting year ahead in 2024, working with publishers and brands to better their processes with innovative workflow tools for the entire publishing lifecycle, and developing #BiblioSuite to continue to meet the industry's ever-changing requirements.
Thank you to everyone who has worked with us in 2023!
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