Conference Wrap Up Part 3 – BISG Annual Meeting

In March and April, the NetGalley team attended the Audio Publishers Association Conference (APAC), London Book Fair, Festival des Livres Paris (Paris Book Festival), Leipziger Buchmesse (Leipzig Book Fair), and the Book Industry Study Group (BISG) annual meeting. This month (May), we—along with our Firebrand Group colleagues—look forward to the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) Publishing University, Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA) Leadership Summit, and Publishers Weekly U.S. Book Show. Scroll to the end of this article to set up a meeting with our teams!

Read all of our 2023 spring conference wrap ups:

Paul Milana, Joshua Tallent, Angela Bole, Kristina Radke, and Mary Pratt at the BISG Annual Meeting

Book Industry Study Group (BISG) Annual Meeting:

It’s impossible to avoid news about supply chain disruption, increased costs across the industry, and another digital transformation. As always, BISG kept its thumb on the pulse of the book business, leaning into the theme, “Transforming Supply Chain Communication.”

Sessions were solutions oriented, and focused on the positive questions: What can we do better? What should we do next?

Gary Jones from River Rock Advisors presented a forecasting model that helps publishers and printers determine print quantities based on marketplace demand, the time required to supply printed books, as well as inventory management and returns. That presentation was followed by a discussion on changes that are needed in the data part of the supply chain (and not just the continuing need for the adoption of ONIX 3). Kris Kliemann, chair of the BISG Rights Committee, brought up the importance of rights data and how difficult it can be for publishers to know what rights they own. She said, “Rights you know about are an asset, rights you don’t are a liability.” The discussion also touched on making data more accessible to more people, the importance of keywords, and the benefit of publishers developing a data dictionary to define their terms clearly.

The last panel discussion of the day included an interesting presentation by Lauren Stewart at BookNet Canada about how that organization has centralized much of the metadata and other publishing support processes in Canada, and provides a central, clean repository of metadata for trading partners. As with the other panels, the discussion was lively and some great ideas were addressed.

After lunch, Angela Bole, CEO of Firebrand Group, presented the Industry Champion Award to Phil Madans (Executive Director of Digital Publishing Technology, Hachette Book Group). This award honors an individual whose efforts have advanced the publishing industry as a whole. BISG wrote, “The idea that technology should empower, not hinder, the publishing process has been Phil’s north star since creating HBG’s first intranet over 25 years ago.” Congratulations, Phil!

Last, but not least, Joshua Tallent (Director of Sales & Education at Firebrand Technologies) was named as the incoming BISG Board Chair, with responsibilities beginning July 1, 2023. Congratulations, Joshua!

For a deeper dive into the issue of supply chain management, we highly recommend this article by BISG Executive Director Brian O’Leary in Publishers Weekly.

Thank you to the nearly 60 publishers we’ve met with at these spring conferences! It’s always a pleasure to speak with the passionate members of our client community, and we’ve been inspired by our conversations. 

Read our next installment, covering the Leipziger Buchmesse (Leipzig Book Fair).

Find us here in May:

  • May 5-6: IBPA Publishing University
    • Meet with Kristina Radke (VP of Business Growth & Engagement) and Katie Versluis (Customer Success Manager), NetGalley
    • concierge [at] netgalley.com
  • May 9-10: ECPA Leadership Summit
    • Meet with Joshua Tallent, Director of Sales and Education, Firebrand Technologies
    • info [at] firebrandtech.com
  • May 23-25: Publishers Weekly U.S. Book Show
    • We are thrilled to sponsor this event. Find us at the NetGalley Pub Hub!
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