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Bookish announces new consumer review platform, BookishFirst

Bookish.com, an editorial content site connecting readers with books and authors, owned by NetGalley LLC, today announces the launch of BookishFirst, an early preview and review platform for avid readers.

With BookishFirst, readers discover new books and authors, read pre-publication excerpts, win free books, provide valuable blurbs and reviews, and share their love of books with the world.

Readers enter raffles to win free books by writing blurbs (“First Impressions”) based on excerpts (“First Looks”). The raffle winners receive the full book approximately one month pre-pub, and then post full reviews to major book retail sites on publication day. Readers earn points for each action, which can later be redeemed for more free books.

Publishers use the BookishFirst platform to announce their books prior to publication to an active, dedicated community. By participating in BookishFirst raffles, publishers and authors expand discoverability, develop direct relationships with their audience, and generate reviews on retail channels on publication date. The launch raffle includes books from Berkley Publishing Group, Del Rey, Disney-Hyperion, Gallery Books, Harlequin, Sourcebooks Fire, and St. Martin’s Press.

“We are thrilled to launch this new part of Bookish, as it offers a new level of engagement for the passionate book-loving community that has already connected with the strong, curated editorial voice on Bookish.com,” says Lindsey Lochner, VP, Marketing Engagement, NetGalley. “We’re also excited to offer publishers a new platform to capture early reviews and create buzz around their books directly with avid readers. We foresee BookishFirst becoming an important tool for publishers to gain consumer insights, analyze trends, and better understand how to connect directly with readers.”

The technology behind the BookishFirst platform is already a proven concept in Germany with a 97% review rate. NetGalley has licensed the North American rights to the platform under the Bookish brand.

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About Bookish — Bookish.com is an editorial content site connecting readers with books and authors.

The Bookish Mission: Help readers discover their next favorite book.

Features on Bookish.com include seasonal previews, author interviews & exclusives, book club recommendations, giveaways, gift guides, and more. Bookish was acquired by NetGalley LLC in 2016, and functions as an editorially independent, standalone site with a commitment to connecting visitors with interesting and relevant content.

Please visit www.bookish.com.

Contact: Lindsey Lochner, VP, Marketing Engagement: lindsey.lochner@bookish.com

About Firebrand Technologies
Firebrand Technologies is dedicated to providing leading software and services to help publishers achieve success. Firebrand provides steadfast leadership and seamless information flow throughout the entire publishing process. Title Management Enterprise Software tracks titles from pre-acquisition through post-production, marketing, and sales. Eloquence on Demand is the industry gold standard for implementing ONIX and maximizing control of how data and assets reach the marketplace. Eloquence on Alert’s proprietary title performance monitoring service collects key, hard-to-access details about your products from major online marketplaces and review sites, and puts all of that information directly at your fingertips. FlightDeck is the most powerful EPUB Quality Assurance and validation tool available. NetGalley helps publishers connect with a large and growing number of book influencers, creating buzz about your books, and getting key feedback, before publication.

NetGalley Announces NetGalley.co.uk and NetGalley.jp; Evers now Assistant Director of NetGalley UK

NetGalley, LLC, the company that provides publisher marketing services and secure, digital review copies to reviewers, media, librarians, booksellers and educators, today announced the launch of a new country-specific site for the United Kingdom, which will be live 25th October. Additionally, NetGalley.jp (which has been in beta release for several months in Japan) will have its official launch on 17th October, 2017.

NetGalley has long been established in the UK publishing community and the launch of NetGalley.co.uk on 25th October means it will have its own dedicated, UK-focused site for the first time. Furthermore, publishers will now be able to promote their titles on NetGalley sites around the world – including NetGalley.com, NetGalley.co.uk, NetGalley.fr, NetGalley.de, and NetGalley.jp.

As the new site launches, Stuart Evers is promoted to Assistant Director, NetGalley UK, overseeing all client acquisitions and marketing services for the UK platform. Evers continues to report to Kristina Radke, VP, Business Growth & Engagement for NetGalley.

“The UK is our fastest growing market, and we are thrilled to be able to provide their own dedicated site, while preserving their ability to promote to US influencers,” commented Fran Toolan, CEO of both NetGalley and Firebrand Technologies. “We are also pleased and excited that NetGalley.jp has now achieved enough momentum in Japan to warrant a full release.”

Evers notes, “Since joining NetGalley five years ago, I’ve been looking forward to a site specifically for UK influencers and publishers. The launch of co.uk will ensure members can discover the very best books in the UK, and publishers can promote their titles to the UK’s most important readers. It’s hugely exciting and I can’t wait for everyone to log in.”

“Stuart has been a key part of NetGalley’s success in the UK and has demonstrated unwavering enthusiasm and support for this market,” says Radke. “I look forward to continuing our work together to ensure NetGalley serves the needs of UK publishers and readers.”

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About NetGalley
NetGalley (www.netgalley.com) is an industry-standard service to help readers of influence discover and recommend new books to their audiences. NetGalley delivers secure, digital galleys to professional readers on behalf of over 300 publishers in North America, Australia, the UK, France and Germany, to help promote and market new books. NetGalley is part of Firebrand Technologies (www.firebrandtech.com), which provides leading software and services to help publishers achieve success.

About Firebrand Technologies
Firebrand Technologies is dedicated to providing leading software and services to help publishers achieve success. Firebrand provides steadfast leadership and seamless information flow throughout the entire publishing process. Title Management Enterprise Software tracks titles from pre-acquisition through post-production, marketing, and sales. Eloquence on Demand is the industry gold standard for implementing ONIX and maximizing control of how data and assets reach the marketplace. Eloquence on Alert’s proprietary title performance monitoring service collects key, hard-to-access details about your products from major online marketplaces and review sites, and puts all of that information directly at your fingertips. FlightDeck is the most powerful EPUB Quality Assurance and validation tool available. NetGalley helps publishers connect with a large and growing number of book influencers, creating buzz about your books, and getting key feedback, before publication.

NetGalley Announces Several Promotions; Archer now CTO of both NetGalley and Firebrand

NetGalley, LLC, the company that provides publisher marketing services and secure, digital review copies to reviewers, media, librarians, booksellers and educators, today announced several internal promotions:

Lindsey Lochner has been promoted to VP, Marketing Engagement, reporting to Fran Toolan, CEO. Lochner is responsible for all NetGalley marketing and advertising services, as well as those provided by Bookish.com, which NetGalley acquired last year.

Tarah Theoret has been promoted to Director, Community Engagement, reporting to Lochner. Theoret will manage the reader communities for both NetGalley.com and Bookish.com.

Kristina Radke has been promoted to VP, Business Growth & Engagement, reporting to Toolan. Radke is responsible for all publisher acquisition and management for the NetGalley platform in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia, as well as overseeing partner relationships in Germany, France, and Japan.

Shane Archer, current CTO of NetGalley, has been promoted to CTO of both NetGalley, LLC and Firebrand Technologies. Relating to Archer’s elevated status, Israel Carberry has been promoted to Engineering Manager of NetGalley, reporting to Archer.

“These promotions are recognition for many outstanding contributions to NetGalley and are testament to its growth in the past few years,” commented Fran Toolan, CEO of both NetGalley and Firebrand Technologies. “NetGalley is poised for future significant growth, and this team will make it happen. I am especially excited about Shane’s promotion as I see many opportunities for NetGalley and Firebrand to more closely collaborate on future projects.”

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About NetGalley
NetGalley (www.netgalley.com) is an industry-standard service to help readers of influence discover and recommend new books to their audiences. NetGalley delivers secure, digital galleys to professional readers on behalf of over 300 publishers in North America, Australia, the UK, France and Germany, to help promote and market new books. NetGalley is part of Firebrand Technologies (www.firebrandtech.com), which provides leading software and services to help publishers achieve success.

About Firebrand Technologies
Firebrand Technologies is dedicated to providing leading software and services to help publishers achieve success. Firebrand provides steadfast leadership and seamless information flow throughout the entire publishing process. Title Management Enterprise Software tracks titles from pre-acquisition through post-production, marketing, and sales. Eloquence on Demand is the industry gold standard for implementing ONIX and maximizing control of how data and assets reach the marketplace. Eloquence on Alert’s proprietary title performance monitoring service collects key, hard-to-access details about your products from major online marketplaces and review sites, and puts all of that information directly at your fingertips. FlightDeck is the most powerful EPUB Quality Assurance and validation tool available. NetGalley helps publishers connect with a large and growing number of book influencers, creating buzz about your books, and getting key feedback, before publication.

Get a FREE BookExpo-Exclusive Metadata Health Assessment!

Let the power of our sophisticated toolset go to work for you
Firebrand has been helping publishers manage their metadata for 30 years. At BookExpo this year, we want to help you highlight and correct issues in your metadata.
So, we are offering a FREE, no obligation Metadata Health Assessment. You provide us with ten titles and we will run a comprehensive health check on each of them, including:

1. Actionable Market Intelligence:  Do you know if each of your titles is being presented accurately on retail sites?
 You will receive an Eloquence on Alert report for your submitted titles, showing trends and notable information from major retailers gathered during the Health Assessment period! This report gains more power the more time your books are being tracked, so don’t wait to sign up!
2. Minimum Required Metadata: Do you meet industry minimums, or are your trading partners missing the basic information they need?
 We will provide you with an Eloquence on Demand overview highlighting deficiencies or errors in your data.
3. Discoverability Factor: How good is your metadata? Does it meet industry best practices? Do you have enough of it?
 We will assess the quality of your data, including long-form bibliographic metadata (author bio, description, excerpt, etc.), looking for missing information and for potential formatting or content issues.
4. Evergreen Metadata: How often is your metadata being updated? Are you including the right information in those updates?
 We will tell you just how often. Our clients have proven again and again that refreshing product data leads to discoverability and sales.
5. Manual Retailer Assessment: Are the retailers handling your metadata correctly? How does it look on their websites?
 We will look at the metadata for each book as it exists on major retailers (Amazon, B&N, Google, Apple, and Kobo) and assess its quality and completeness in comparison to the metadata you are providing.
Want to participate?
You could win a MacBook Air!
Enter your books in the Metadata Health Assessment today, and you will be entered into a drawing to win a FREE MacBook Air.
Rules

Of course we have rules! Nothing crazy, though:

  1. Only publishers may enter. We want to help publishers create better metadata, so this is not open to just anyone. 
  2. Every entry must include exactly 10 ISBNs, no more, no less.
  3. The ISBNs must all come from different titles (not just different formats of the same titles). This number of titles gives us a good view of the metadata you send out and helps us see patterns.
  4. All submissions must be completed by 11:59pm EST on May 19th, 2017. That’s the deadline. Really. No extensions. Don’t wait to sign up!
  5. Applicants must schedule and attend an in-person meeting at the Firebrand booth at BookExpo 2017. We need to show you what we find, so you have to show up to your meeting at the conference to have your entry in the drawing confirmed. Don’t forget to put it on your calendar!
  6. Submissions are limited to the first 40 publishers. That’s 400 titles we have to check, so we have to set the limit somewhere!
  7. The MacBook Air drawing will take place after BookExpo. The winner will be contacted through email. 

Firebrand acquires IP Assets from Enthrill Distribution, Inc.

Firebrand Technologies, a pioneer in publishing technology services, today announced the acquisition of the technology assets and brands from Enthrill Distribution, Inc., a provider of innovative digital content distribution technologies for the publishing industry.

The acquisition includes PackaDRM, a device agnostic social DRM, and the Endpaper Engine, an ebook delivery platform that delivers ebooks into any reading device. These technologies and brands will join the robust ebook delivery and distribution solutions already provided by Firebrand to customers around the world through Eloquence on Demand, NetGalley, and Direct2Reader.

PackaDRM works by inserting digital rights messaging within ebook files in a way that is comprehensive and visible to readers while offering a level of protection on copyrighted materials. The Endpaper Engine integrates with PackaDRM and delivers ebooks that are compatible with all popular devices, including ereaders, tablets, smartphones, and computers.

“Firebrand is the perfect fit for the technology developed at Enthrill, this deal offers a terrific opportunity to expand on the bulk ebook business we created,” says Kevin Franco, CEO of Enthrill.

Fran Toolan, Firebrand’s CEO and Chief Igniter says, “This addition to our service offering gives us yet another tool to help our publishing partners engage with readers.”
Kevin Franco will continue to work with Firebrand as a consultant for the foreseeable future.

Visit firebrandtech.com/eod to learn more about Firebrand’s ebook distribution and delivery services.

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About Firebrand Technologies
Firebrand Technologies is dedicated to providing leading software and services to help publishers achieve success. Firebrand provides steadfast leadership and seamless information flow throughout the entire publishing process. Title Management Enterprise Software tracks titles from pre-acquisition through post-production, marketing, and sales. Eloquence on Demand is the industry gold standard for implementing ONIX and maximizing control of how data and assets reach the marketplace. Eloquence on Alert’s proprietary title performance monitoring service collects key, hard-to-access details about your products from major online marketplaces and review sites, and puts all of that information directly at your fingertips. FlightDeck is the most powerful EPUB Quality Assurance and validation tool available. NetGalley helps publishers connect with a large and growing number of book influencers, creating buzz about your books, and getting key feedback, before publication.

Firebrand Reveals Eloquence on Alert

eloquence_on_alert_logo_final_largeFirebrand Technologies, a pioneer in publishing technology services, today announced Eloquence on Alert™. By analyzing the marketplace carefully, Eloquence on Alert will highlight notable trends such as fluctuating product prices, product presentation, ranking and audience behavior, providing publishers the ability to observe all of their titles in the marketplace—a task not achievable manually. This new service will provide detail about key retail channels, allowing for specific and targeted action based on this market intelligence. By consolidating sales into an easy-to-use dashboard, Eloquence on Alert also provides publishers with the business intelligence necessary to maximize sales of their books.

The tool augments Firebrand’s Title Management Enterprise Software™ and Eloquence on Demand™ service, the book industry’s gold standard publishing support platform, and gives publishers unprecedented transparency into the retail marketplace.

“For 18 years, Eloquence on Demand has syndicated metadata and content globally for thousands of publishers. Metadata is often viewed as technical in nature,” says Firebrand President Doug Lessing. “But in actuality, it is all about merchandising books in marketplaces, facilitating effective relationships and ultimately putting books in the hands of readers. Today, with the announcement of Eloquence on Alert, we are providing the ideal complimentary service to report back actionable intelligence to our publishers that will help them respond to real-time events in the market.”
Lessing continues, “Our current Eloquence on Alert Beta Program is providing encouraging evidence of the impact proactive market analysis has on sales. We are excited to be launching this new service in March 2017.”

Visit firebrandtech.com/eoa to learn how you can maximize your sales through the use of Eloquence on Alert to make simple adjustments based on market intelligence.

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About Firebrand Technologies
Firebrand Technologies is dedicated to providing leading software and services to help publishers achieve success. Firebrand provides steadfast leadership and seamless information flow throughout the entire publishing process. Title Management Enterprise Software tracks titles from pre-acquisition through post-production, marketing, and sales. Eloquence on Demand is the industry gold standard for implementing ONIX and maximizing control of how data and assets reach the marketplace. Eloquence on Alert’s proprietary title performance monitoring service collects key, hard-to-access details about your products from major online marketplaces and review sites, and puts all of that information directly at your fingertips. FlightDeck is the most powerful EPUB Quality Assurance and validation tool available. NetGalley helps publishers connect with a large and growing number of book influencers, creating buzz about your books, and getting key feedback, before publication.

Announcing Eloquence on Alert

Have you ever wondered what was really going on with your books on Amazon and other retailers? According to BISG’s report on The Development, Use, and Modification of Book Product Metadata, only 36% of publishers manually check their metadata once it is live on retailer websites. Meanwhile, 95% of publishers say their metadata is altered without their knowledge on retail websites by third parties like distributors and metadata aggregators.

The problem is that once you publish a book you are usually too busy working on the next one to keep an eye on your metadata. The more books you publish, the more daunting the task. Eventually you just leave backlist titles alone unless someone complains about something or you notice a problem when you happen to go look at the product page.

Our new Eloquence on Alert service is designed to give you detailed, actionable market intelligence about your books. It highlights notable trends such as fluctuating sale prices, product metadata issues, changes in customer rankings, and audience behavior. You’ll see information from all of the major retailers, both print and ebook, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple, Google, Kobo, and Goodreads.

Visit the Eloquence on Alert page here on our website for more information, including a short introductory video and informative screenshots of the service.

We will also be hosting a webinar on Wednesday, February 8th at 2:00pm ET, which will give you an overview of the Eloquence on Alert service, as well as information on our Case Study on Increasing Sales Through Effective use of Keywords. Register now!

NetGalley Kid Reviewers Reignite Languishing Book Club

Parents reliably dropped their middle schoolers off after school for book club meetings at the Jolla/Riford branch of the San Diego Public Library. But despite a warm welcome from the librarians there, and the enthusiasm of those moms and dads, few kids stuck with it. “We tried everything to boost enrollment, including e-blasts at school, posting flyers, and rounding up kids in the library on the same day, but the club was really struggling,” recalls Shaun Briley, the La Jolla/Riford branch manager and a 2016 Library Journal Mover & Shaker.

A sea change was in order—and a lightbulb went off. “At the time, I was writing occasional book reviews for the Sunday edition of the San Diego Union Tribune,” says Briley. “Also, I had done some marketing work for a publishing company in the past, and the two things came together in my mind.” He wondered if there wouldn’t be a demand for middle schoolers who could act as a focus group by writing book reviews.

In researching this idea, he came across NetGalley, the digital service that provides online galleys to professional readers on behalf of hundreds of publishers worldwide in order to help promote and market new books.

Read the entire story on School Library Journal.

NetGalley Acquires Bookish.com

NetGalley, an industry-standard service to promote forthcoming titles to readers of influence, has acquired Bookish.com, an editorial site designed to connect readers with books and authors.

Bookish.com is an online resource serving readers of all genres through author interviews, book recommendations, and literary roundups. Founded by Hachette Book Group, Penguin Group (USA) and Simon & Schuster, Bookish.com was launched in February 2013 and was acquired by Zola Books in January 2014 along with Bookish Recommends, a book recommendation engine.

As a sister company to NetGalley, Bookish will remain an editorially independent, standalone site with its continued commitment to connecting visitors with interesting and relevant content.

Zola Books will retain Bookish’s book recommendation technology, which they have rebranded Zola Recommends. “I’m proud of how the Zola Books team built Bookish.com into the vibrant and exciting experience it is today. As Zola intensifies its focus on creating superlative book technology services, we are delighted that Bookish.com will have an opportunity to fulfill its mission under NetGalley’s stewardship,” Zola Books CEO Joe Regal says of the sale.

Following the acquisition, NetGalley and Bookish.com will continue to grow their respective communities, while exploring natural ways to connect the editorial content between the two websites to best serve readers, publishers, and authors. “We are very excited to bring Bookish’s consumer-facing, curated, editorial voice to the NetGalley family,” says Fran Toolan, CEO of NetGalley and Firebrand Technologies. “We view Bookish.com as yet another way that our client publishers can help their books succeed.”

Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

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About NetGalley
NetGalley (www.netgalley.com) is an industry-standard service to help readers of influence discover and recommend new books to their audiences. NetGalley delivers secure, digital galleys to professional readers on behalf of over 300 publishers in North America, Australia, the UK, France and Germany, to help promote and market new books. NetGalley is part of Firebrand Technologies (www.firebrandtech.com), which provides leading software and services to help publishers achieve success.

Contact: Lindsey Lochner, Community & Marketing Director, NetGalley: lindsey@netgalley.com

About Bookish.com
Bookish.com was founded by leading publishing houses Hachette Book Group, Penguin Group (USA) and Simon & Schuster. Launched in 2013, the site is a comprehensive online resource designed to connect readers with books and authors, and was selected as one of PCWorld’s “25 Favorite Lifestyle Sites.”

Contact: Kelly Gallucci, Editorial Director, Bookish.com: kelly.gallucci@bookish.com

About Zola Books
Zola Books’s mission is to provide technology tools to everyone who cares about books. Whether with its Everywhere Store™ widget, which makes it easy to sell any book in any format anywhere online, or its best-in-class recommendation engine Zola Recommends (“By comparison, Amazon’s recommendation engine falls a little flat” – LA Times), or its free branded reading apps for Apple and Android, Zola empowers authors, booksellers, publishers, and more to reach readers directly and offer a better experience once they do.

Contact: Anita Perala, Manager, Zola Books: anita.perala@zolabooks.com

About Firebrand Technologies
Firebrand Technologies is dedicated to providing leading software and services to help publishers achieve success. Firebrand provides steadfast leadership and seamless information flow throughout the entire publishing process. Title Management Enterprise Software tracks titles from pre-acquisition through post-production, marketing, and sales. Eloquence on Demand is the industry gold standard for implementing ONIX and maximizing control of how data and assets reach the marketplace. Eloquence on Alert’s proprietary title performance monitoring service collects key, hard-to-access details about your products from major online marketplaces and review sites, and puts all of that information directly at your fingertips. FlightDeck is the most powerful EPUB Quality Assurance and validation tool available. NetGalley helps publishers connect with a large and growing number of book influencers, creating buzz about your books, and getting key feedback, before publication.