“We see how well you service publishers day in and day out.”
–NBN International via Twitter
We plan our roadmap based on what our customers tell us they want. That means that a lot of “custom” work is actually delivered for free, as part of our ongoing development of Consonance. Here are some of the developments we’ve shipped for specific customers, many of which are fully available to all users of the system.
Work derivations
We added work derivation features to Consonance to enable sustainable agricultural publisher Burleigh Dodds to deliver their strategic point of difference: the ability to manage each of their books’ chapters as its own work. Burleigh Dodds subsequently won the IPG Newcomer Award and achieved BIC Gold accreditation the same year.
RESTful JSON API
“Zed Books had a storming year and Consonance played a big part in our success.”
–Zed Books
We radically transformed Zed Books’ data over two years, and implemented a number of data feeds including a JSON API to their new website. This collaborative investment of time and effort contributed to a 25% uplift in sales for their 40th anniversary year.
Royalty implementation
Vertebrate’s royalty agreements are typical of a successful, mature medium-sized publisher: complex, with a number of edge cases, long-lived backlist titles, multi-author agreements, multiple contract start dates and opening balances. We migrated their legacy data and provided guidance on using Consonance’s built-in royalty functionality. Consonance now produces their royalty statements automatically and accurately, twice a year.
Pharmaceutical Press, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society publishers of the annual British National Formulary, used Consonance to produce an XML export of their metadata, which they imported into InDesign to automatically create their printed catalogue. The result was a sales tool displaying the perfect combination of standardised pages with added editorial creative flair.
Automated catalogue feed
We implemented the Belgian NUR and French CLIL subject classification schemes for Leuven University Press (whose website is fed directly from Consonance), and the ability to automatically translate prices through various permutations such as from Belgian inc. VAT to Belgian ex. VAT to French inc. VAT, to allow them to enter prices inclusive of Belgian VAT then send them to French trade partners in ONIX.
Automated advance information PDFs
“The automation of ONIX metadata to distribution channels saves us a huge amount of time and effort. The relationship with your team allows us to develop our existing metadata, and develop new product metadata and mechanisms too, using Consonance as a source. This is really valuable.”
–Institute of Physics Ebooks Product Manager
We implemented IOP’s advance information sheet design in Consonance, combining the efficiency of automation with the sales benefits of their pixel-perfect design. Now, IOP can export a zip file of hundreds of PDFs in one fell swoop, avoiding copy-and-paste and manual errors.
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