Virtusales Publishing Solutions is delighted to welcome Icon Books to the Biblio community.
Recently acquired by Jonathan Ball Publishers, Icon Books is at the beginning of an exciting journey which will see the publisher expand rapidly in coming years. Acknowledging the importance of scalable systems, Icon Books has selected the new Biblio Suite of publishing software to automate manual and time-consuming processes, provide a solid foundation for growth, and future-proof its business and workflows for many years to come.
Implementing the Biblio Suite will:
Provide a central, online system containing all metadata and assets, rights and royalties that can be easily accessed by staff remotely;
Reduce the time spent re-keying information into disparate systems;
Allow the dissemination of enhanced, quality data and digital assets to supply chain partners, and provide secure, online access to royalties statements to authors and agents;
Streamline the costing and scheduling processes to allow for an increase in output with the same number of staff; and,
Put Icon Books on a level-footing with other world-leading publishers, providing it with all the tools required to drive growth, extend the use of its intellectual property and maximize its revenue.
“We intend to grow substantially in the years to come and the implementation of Biblio means that we are positioned as competitively as all other Biblio Suite users; including Penguin Random House, Hachette, Macmillan and Bonnier.”
Philip Cotterell, CEO, Icon Books
The Problem
Prior to implementing Biblio, Icon Books used a number of separate systems, spreadsheets and documents to manage its workflows, and they were not able to support the publisher’s projected level of growth without significantly increasing their headcount. Icon Books needed a better, more efficient way of working, and a system that will grow and evolve with the publisher through each stage of its growth. Both management and key members of Icon Books’ staff agreed that Biblio is the all-in-one solution that will address their myriad requirements.
The Solution
Icon Books selected the Biblio Suite of publishing software and many of the digital workflows, dashboards and toolsets it encompasses – including Bibliographic, Digital Asset Management, Production, Contracts, Rights, Royalties, and the Biblio Royalty Portal – with a view to increasing their productivity and becoming more efficient, in order to substantially grow their business without needing to increase their number of staff.
As a direct result of working remotely due to the ongoing pandemic, the team recognized the practicality in having a system that can be accessed securely online (regardless of each team member’s location), so they are able to take advantage of any new opportunities that arise, and permit online access to business partners in order to effortlessly share their data, assets, royalties statements and more, at the click of a button.
In particular, the team is looking forward to having a single, central system containing a single version of the truth that can be easily and seamlessly shared with distributors, retailers, suppliers and external systems reducing the number of disparate systems and re-keying of data.
“The Biblio system is now up and running and the greatest compliment we can pay is that the system runs in a manner that we don’t have to think about it. It provides us with the base to expand as planned in the years to come. Thanks again to all involved.”
Philip Cotterell, CEO, Icon Books
About Icon Books
Icon Books is a publisher of quality, commercial non-fiction with particular strengths in science, politics, culture, history, sport, humour and much else. We're the publisher of the renowned Graphic Guide series of comic book-style introductions to big ideas, and celebrated authors such as Mark Forsyth, Helen Russell, MJ Barker and David Hoffman. 2022 marks our 30th anniversary. We are proud to sell our books throughout the world in collaboration with partners such as the Independent Alliance in the UK, Allen & Unwin in Australia and Penguin Random House in India. In 2020, Icon was acquired by South Africa's Jonathan Ball Publishers, and we have recently launched a new imprint of that name in the UK.
About Biblio
Biblio offers growing publishers the opportunity to implement tried-and-tested, digital workflows that have been developed in collaboration with world-leading publishers, to streamline their processes and increase their output without increasing their number of employees. It enables content-led publishing models, helping publishers to fully utilize their IP and maximize their income regardless of the publishing formats chosen. Biblio users are therefore free to focus on growing their business in the sound mind that all their data, assets and essential documentation – from editorial right the way through to royalties – are being recorded and stored in a way which will better the performance of the business, and will increase effective communications (both internally and externally, with staff, business partners, authors and agents alike).
Biblio is proven to help publishing houses of all shapes and sizes to save time, reduce duplication of efforts and increase the access to key information and documents company-wide. The only difficulty after implementing will be deciding what to do with the time you’ve freed up!
By choosing Biblio’s comprehensive system, your publishing house will be able to:
manage multiple formats including books, e-books, audiobooks, packs and bundles (including non-book products), licenses and merchandise;
easily maintain high-quality metadata and enhanced ONIX feeds;
control and record all aspects of safety-testing (if applicable);
generate and authorize contracts with software that enables full rights management;
create costings and schedules for production;
raise purchase orders within the Biblio system;
handle complex royalty calculations and payments;
and much, much more.
About Virtusales Publishing Solutions
Virtusales is the creator of the industry leading Biblio Suite of publishing software.
Working with some of the world's leading trade, children’s and novelty, academic and scholarly, educational and professional, content and licensing, and religious publishers including Penguin Random House, Faber, Oxford University Press, Hachette, Bloomsbury and Macmillan Publishers, Virtusales is streamlining publishers' workflows and bringing efficiencies to their business processes with innovative software, exceptional service and a collaborative approach.
Our leading edge, web-based technology, rapid development cycle of new functionality and close working relationships with our customers ensure that our client publishers are able to manage and adapt to the industry's challenges more efficiently, now and in the future.
Find out more here or contact us for further information.