The curve has finally caught up

I am more and more convinced that fundamental change is well underway in the publishing industry. For years, we as a company have been well AHEAD of the curve in publishing - painfully ahead. Talking conceptually about our Title Managemenent software - and attempting to sell it - back in the nineties always seemed an uphill battle. Most publishers did not see a critical need for the front-office, presswide databases that we were evangalizing. The sales cycle was long and slow. The large publishers were getting the picture and our earliest clients - Simon & Schuster and Macmillan joined us on the pioneer path.

Even our eloquence service, started in 1998 - was probably 5 years ahead of its time. Early adopters of the service - S&S, Macmillan, and our first adopter Guilford, paved the way to sending Amazon tagged files, then Onix files. In fact, Guilford holds the honor of having the first onix file transmitted in the industry to appear on a website - B&N. But that was years ago - shortly after the turn of the century.

Those two curves have FINALLY caught up. There is no doubt that there is a sense of urgency. I have written about a couple of clear benefits to have this strategically important infrastructure in place, like unleashing the creativity in an organization. Another provocative question to ask a publisher is where they go to get information about one of their own titles...Amazon??? Publishers are recognizing that without complete control of their own title information and workflow, there is no way they will be able to keep up with the accelerating change shaping the industry - from digital distribution of content to print-on-demand to exploiting special sales channels, well, you get the picture. Even in the past week, I have had several conversations with publishers searching for solutions, and the urgency is palpable.

One thing you can be assured of...we at Quality Solutions are not comfortable being comfortably in-sync with the curve and are plotting our next moves to get out ahead again - probably painfully so. Any early adopters out there ready to go for a ride?