Emerald Publishing gives green light to IBS Bookmaster

International Business Systems has announced that Emerald Group Publishing, a global publisher of academic books and journals, has agreed to implement the IBS Bookmaster Editorial and Book Production and Royalties Management applications.

Emerald is a key publisher of academic research journals on the world stage. The company has 200 employees and more than 200 journals, with subscriptions from over 3,000 university libraries worldwide. Emerald recently expanded its product portfolio by acquiring a backlist of over 1,500 books and book series volumes. It will be publishing 120 new book titles in 2009, which has created a requirement for specialist IT systems.

Rebecca Marsh is Publishing Director for Emerald Group Publishing and she explains, By selecting IBS Bookmaster, a tried, tested and high quality system that will manage the production and royalty requirements of our new book series, we are sending a very positive message to the market. It reassures our channel partners that we have the capabilities in place to handle the entire process of bringing books to market effectively and efficiently.

Having made the decision to move into book publishing, Emerald looked at a number of potential solutions for handling its new requirements.

 With IBS Bookmaster, all the functionality we needed was already there. There was nothing that we had to design ourselves, says Rebecca Marsh.

 In addition, IBS is providing the software as a completely hosted solution, meaning we dont have to worry about purchasing hardware or having the internal resources necessary to run and support it. It is a solution that fulfils all our day-to-day operational and business requirements, but with low capital outlay and minimal impact on our business resources.

Mike Irving, VP Publishing for IBS, comments, We are delighted that Emerald has selected IBS Bookmaster. In particular, this implementation shows that the IBS Bookmaster application suite comprises true best-of-breed solutions in a fully integrated environment. In addition, it demonstrates the benefits that publishers can gain from adopting our powerful hosted service, which ensures maximum system performance and availability with excellent value and low cost of ownership.

The IBS Bookmaster Editorial and Book Production system will allow Emerald to manage the entire process of producing books and related items and covers the following: Planning (publishing schedules), Specifications, Estimating & Budgeting, Cost Management,  Project Scheduling, Resource Management; Amortization, Paper control and Reporting. It is driven by publishing-specific business rules, making it extremely flexible and suitable for Emeralds book production requirements. It will also allow Emerald to submit advance title and marketing information to its channel partners.

IBS Bookmaster Royalty Management is a powerful system that automates even the most complex rights and royalty provisions. It provides a host of integrated functionality that will allow Emerald the flexibility to define, change and manage Royalty contracts.

Rebecca Marsh concludes, We are really looking forward to implementing IBS Bookmaster and working closely with IBS. During the selection process we found them to be very professional and felt they would be a good company to work with. The product looks to be exactly what we require and we are reassured by the fact that IBS Bookmaster is used by many of the largest and best-known publishers in the world.