Firebrand Group Welcomes New CEO Angela Bole

Firebrand Group (FBG), the book industry’s leading technology company for cutting edge software and services, announced today the official placement of Angela Bole in the role of Chief Executive Officer. Her appointment to succeed previous CEO Fran Toolan was initially announced on June 9, 2022. Since then, Ms. Bole has worked alongside Mr. Toolan, the FBG Board of Directors, and various members of the FBG management team to ensure a smooth transition.

Ms. Bole joins Firebrand Group—a collection of companies including Firebrand Technologies, NetGalley LLC, and Supadu Ltd—at a pivotal moment in the company’s 35 year history. Firebrand Technologies and NetGalley were acquired by Media Do International (MD-i), the US-based subsidiary of Japan’s Media Do Co., Ltd, in 2021; Supadu in 2022. Today, this unique collection of companies, now all co-located under the Firebrand Group umbrella, provides publishers with cohesive tools to effectively manage internal workflows, external marketing, and eventual sales.

Previous to Firebrand Group, Ms. Bole served as CEO of the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA). Throughout her time at IBPA her mission was “to lead and serve independent publishers through advocacy, education, and tools for success.” Ms. Bole is highly regarded in the book industry for raising the profile and visibility of the IBPA, and for encouraging book publishing best practices and the highest industry standards.

“We are excited to be joined by Angela Bole who will head up Firebrand Group,” says Daihei Shiohama, President and CEO of Media Do International, Inc. “We are fortunate to have secured Ms. Bole whose considerable experience and knowledge of the industry will take our family of companies forward in its next phase of development.”

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About the Firebrand Group – The Firebrand Group, consisting of Firebrand Technologies, NetGalley, and Supadu, provides leading software and services to help publishers achieve success. The Firebrand Group is owned by Media Do International (MD-i), the US-based subsidiary of Japan’s Media Do Co., Ltd, one of the largest ebook distribution companies in the world retaining the largest share of Japan’s ebook market. For more information, visit firebrandtech.com. For more information on Media Do’s services and corporate divisions, visit mediado.jp/english.

Angela Bole to Succeed Fran Toolan at the Firebrand Group

The Firebrand Group (firebrandtech.com), the book industry’s leading technology company for cutting edge software and services that enable publisher success, announced today that Angela Bole, current CEO at the Independent Book Publishers Association (ibpa-online.org), will succeed Firebrand CEO Fran Toolan on February 1, 2023. Toolan, who founded Firebrand as Quality Solutions, Inc. in 1987, passes the reins to Bole after 35 years as the company’s sole CEO. He will remain on the Firebrand Group Board of Directors post transition.

Upon launching Firebrand Technologies, Toolan understood that the publishing industry was a unique and creative business that needed efficient tools and workflow processes to thrive and be profitable. “These tools must accentuate the creativity in publishing,” he said at the time, “not hinder it.”

Today, the Firebrand Group includes Firebrand Technologies, NetGalley, and Supadu. Firebrand Technologies Title Management Enterprise Software and Eloquence on Demand service headline a group of technologies that help publishers track and manage titles from pre-acquisition through their long tail of sales. NetGalley helps provide excitement about titles by connecting eBook and audio content with reviewers. And the newest addition to the Firebrand family of services, Supadu, is the leading provider of publisher e-commerce solutions in the US and UK.

In February 2021, Firebrand was acquired by Media Do International (MD-i), the US-based subsidiary of Japan’s Media Do Co., Ltd, one of the largest ebook distribution companies in the world retaining the largest share of Japan’s $4.5 billion eBook market.

“With the support of MD-i, the Firebrand Group is growing and innovating at an unparalleled rate of speed,” said Toolan. “The opportunities in front of us are very exciting, and I’m equally excited that Angela will be here to guide us going forward.”

Said Daihei Shiohama, CEO of MD-i: “Both here and in Japan, we are so excited to have Angela succeed Fran. We are determined to provide utmost support to Firebrand Group with Angela as new CEO. With the annual growth rate of close to 20% in Japan’s digital publishing market where NFT, XR, and other diversified elements stimulate the publishing industry, we are convinced that Angela will lead the group to uplift the global publishing industry’s expansion.”

Bole, a 2019 Publishers Weekly notable person of the year, began her career at an independent bookstore in Jackson, WY before moving to NYC in 2005 to pursue a Masters in book publishing from New York University. While in NYC, she held various positions with the Book Industry Study Group (BISG)–including a stint as interim executive director–where she spearheaded research into consumer attitudes toward ebook reading, oversaw initiatives supporting the industry’s transition to ISBN-13, and developed best practices and other documentation for use of the ONIX and EPUB standards. Bole served as treasurer of the International Digital Publishers Forum (IDPF) from 2011 to 2014, before moving to Manhattan Beach, CA to become ED and later CEO of IBPA, where she has stabilized and grown operations for the past nine years.

“During her years leading IBPA, Angela has transformed the organization into the leading association for advocating and supporting the growing community of independent publishers,” said current IBPA Board Chair Karla Olson (Director, Patagonia Books). “During the last two challenging years in particular, Angela made certain IBPA provided innovative and essential member support and increased efforts to ensure diversity, equity, and inclusion within all aspects of the association. IBPA will be forever grateful to Angela for her leadership, her vision, and her passion for publishing.”

Bole officially assumes the position of Firebrand Group CEO on February 1, 2023. When asked what she hopes to achieve, she said, “Firebrand has been powering the publishing industry for over 30 years through quality software solutions and a dedicated and committed staff. Given all we’ve learned over the past few years, I hope to build upon what’s already working to enable even more efficiencies for the companies Firebrand serves. I know this will be a team effort; I couldn’t be more excited to join and lead the team.”

About the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) – Founded in 1983 to support independent publishers nationwide, the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) leads and serves the independent publishing community through advocacy, education, and tools for success. With over 4,000 members, IBPA is the largest publishing association in the U.S. Its vision is a world where every independent publisher has the access, knowledge, and tools needed to professionally engage in all aspects of an inclusive publishing industry. For more information, visit ibpa-online.org.

About the Firebrand Group – The Firebrand Group, consisting of Firebrand Technologies, NetGalley, and Supadu, provides leading software and services to help publishers achieve success. The Firebrand Group is owned by Media Do International (MD-i), the US-based subsidiary of Japan’s Media Do Co., Ltd, one of the largest ebook distribution companies in the world retaining the largest share of Japan’s ebook market. For more information, visit firebrandtech.com. For more information on Media Do’s services and corporate divisions, visit mediado.jp/english.

Media Do International acquires Supadu Ltd.

Media Do International, the US-based subsidiary of Media Do Ltd., in Japan, today announced they have acquired all of the shares of Supadu Ltd. Mark Harvie-Watt, CEO and Co-Founder of Supadu Ltd., will remain on as CEO indefinitely.

Media Do International acquired Firebrand Technologies and NetGalley in January 2021, and Supadu has worked closely with Firebrand for the last five years.
Supadu CEO, Mark Harvie-Watt, said about the deal: “I am really excited to be working with Media Do, Firebrand and NetGalley. We have worked closely with these companies for a number of years and know how important they are for many of our customers. This deal will bring closer synergies, more integrated solutions, and provide our customers with an exciting road map for years to come.”

“We are excited to bring Supadu into the Media Do family as part of the Firebrand Group,” says Daihei Shiohama, CEO of Media Do International. “We look forward to collaborating more closely with them going forward and to expand its business opportunities all around the world including Japan.”

The MEDIA DO Group aspires to make the greatest possible contributions to the growth of the overall publishing market by leveraging its cutting-edge technologies and distinctive position in the industry to promote the popularization of eBooks and other digital content. Media Do International is based in San Diego, California.

Supadu Ltd, based in the UK, was founded in 2010 and is the lead provider of website and e-commerce solutions for publishers. It has more than 250 global customers, primarily in Europe and the US. Supadu serves publishers of all sizes and across trade, academic and university press spaces. With the Supafolio metadata management platform at its core, Supadu uses book data to build beautiful websites with enhanced title visibility, advanced search functions and rich user experience. Supadu has a range of integrated e-commerce solutions and offers extensive support throughout the website build and beyond.

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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.

Title Management Desktop is back!

Editor’s Note: In case it was not clear, this was all an elaborate April Fool’s Joke.

Are you worried about security? Are you pining for the good old days when all of your work was done in desktop applications instead of on websites?

Well, we have the perfect solution for you! Title Management 5.1 for Desktops!

The Title Information page in Title Management 5.1

Title Management 5.1 does away with most of the complex configurations and special capabilities of Title Management 10.5, and returns users to the previous heightened state of efficiency that comes with fewer features and functions. For example, the Home screen is much more streamlined in version 5.1, just showing the Firebrand logo instead of those complex-looking dashboards

The Home screen in Title Management 5.1

In addition to these awesome feature reductions, we are excited to announce that Title Management Desktop will now be available on three CD-ROM disks! No more fumbling with twelve different floppy disks just to install the application.

Are you considering a change? Would you like to know more? Please see our complete overview video here!

Media Do International acquires Firebrand Technologies and NetGalley, LLC

Media Do International, the US based subsidiary of Media Do Ltd., in Japan, today announced that they have acquired all of the shares of Quality Solutions/Firebrand Technologies and NetGalley from their current shareholders. Fran Toolan, founder and CEO of the companies, will remain on as CEO for a minimum of three years.

“We are very pleased to bring Firebrand and NetGalley into the Media Do family,” says Daihei Shiohama, CEO of Media Do International. “We have long respected the works of the Firebrand Group, and are very excited about the prospects of working closely with them in the future.”

“Media Do has been NetGalley’s partner in Japan since 2016, and we know each other quite well,” says Toolan. “Firebrand and NetGalley have never been stronger as companies, and I believe that becoming part of the Media Do Group ensures continuity for our customers and opportunities for our team for many years to come.”

Media Do Co., Ltd. is one of the largest eBook distribution companies in the world and retains the largest share of Japan’s $3.7 billion eBook market*, and is based in Tokyo. Media Do International is based in San Diego, California. Media Do Group’s mission is to realize a sound creative cycle for copyrighted works by distributing them as widely as possible under fair use and maximizing profits to publishers/authors and rights owners. Quality Solutions/Firebrand Technologies was founded in 1987. NetGalley, LLC was acquired in 2008. Firebrand and NetGalley provide marketing and technology services for more than 500 publishers worldwide. NetGalley, LLC operates websites in the US, UK, France, Germany, and Japan.

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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.

New Years Resolutions for Publishers

Welcome to 2021! The time has come again for us to reflect on where we are and make goals for where we want to be when the end of this new year rolls around.

As you consider your publishing goals and plans for 2021, we’d like to offer a few suggestions to help you increase sales and build for a better future.

1. Diversify your lineup

When the COVID-19 shutdowns started last March we had no idea that those shutdowns would lead to the changes we saw in book sales over the course of the year. Publishers with a wide array of titles, and especially titles in specific categories, were much more likely to see success in the midst of those changing buying patterns. There is no telling what the future might hold, so diversification of your publishing programs is looking like a solid business decision for many publishers. If you have the ability to spread out your list into some of the better-selling categories this year, that might be a worthy goal.

2. Enhance your metadata to drive more online sales

The percentage of book sales that were transacted online last year compared to in-store could be as high as 85%, and numerous research reports over the last few years have proven that online sales are impacted directly by the quality of the metadata you send to partners. The recent shift to online sales channels has also lead to a shift in backlist title sales, as readers look for content that interests them and are not limited by the space available on bookstore shelves, typically taken by newer titles.

This year, we encourage you to take the time to engage the metadata on all of your titles, including your backlist, in targeted ways.

  • Create at least 200 characters of keywords for each title
  • Add book excerpts to your Eloquence feed (in the Comments section)
  • Add other data elements, such as Product Details and Prizes (new section for Prizes now available!)
  • Clean up your book descriptions, and add bolded Lead-Ins to the top
  • Get in the habit of linking related titles in the Title Relationships section

These and other cleanup and enhancement tasks really can make an impact on your sales.

3. Watch your titles, fix issues, and grab opportunities quickly

At the Community Conference in November we heard how Our Daily Bread Publishing increased their sales by actively watching their titles on retail sites and fixing issues that arose from bad data, missing cover images, third party sellers taking the Buy Box, and more.

You, too, can watch your titles daily, and gain all the benefits of a powerful tool that warns you when issues arise and opportunities emerge. Take a look at our Eloquence on Alert platform, the most powerful and flexible title performance monitoring system available.

We hope you have a wonderful 2021, and we look forward to hearing how these and other resolutions help you navigate the ever-changing waters we are in.

Update on Amazon Keywords, May 2020

If you have been following our ongoing saga (Part 1, Part 2) of Amazon’s keywords requirements, you’ll know that change is normal. Well, we have now heard that things are changing again. The newest information is:

“Amazon ingests up to 210 bytes globally (with the exception of CN and JP marketplaces, which ingest up to 800 bytes) for subject keywords. Everything beyond this limit and up to 2000 bytes is not used. If more than 2000 bytes are provided in subject keywords, the entire ONIX record will be disregarded.”

This is a significant change from the earlier statement that Amazon would ignore all of the keywords if more than 250 bytes were sent. Now, the accepted byte limit has been lowered to 210, but at least they will truncate the keywords for you automatically.

If you are using Eloquence on Demand, you don’t have to worry about this limit at all, as the Title Management Keywords field has a 1500 character limit, well below the 2000 byte maximum.

Update on Amazon Keywords, November 2019

If you have been following the saga of keywords on Amazon for any length of time, you know that the most accurate answer to the question, “What is Amazon actually doing?” is “It depends.” This whole thing started this time last year when Amazon updated their Vendor Central documentation to include a new maximum keyword limit of 250 bytes/characters.

Since that time, we have been watching the situation at Amazon carefully and talking to many of you about what you are seeing with your own titles. The results of that continued investigation have not been very fruitful, only serving to reinforce the idea that Amazon’s application of this new standard is inconsistent at best. It appears that the keyword limit of 250 bytes is being applied in some cases but not others.

We’ve seen a new wave of updates from Amazon on this issue recently, and we’re getting the sense that these requirements are finally being applied more broadly. However, Amazon has thrown some new recommendations into the mix that are likely to make things even more confusing:

1. The company now states that the 250-byte limit does not include spaces or punctuation, and that keywords should, ideally, not be separated by semicolons. This recommendation breaks from standard industry practice and the ONIX recommendation, based on Library of Congress preferred practices, of using semicolons as a separator.

2. In addition, the new recommendations say words should not be repeated in the keywords field.

We assume that Amazon wants to maximize the value of the words provided in the smaller keyword space allotted by removing duplicates. That makes sense when combined with their note that “Amazon determines the relevancy of search terms using a machine learning model.” We have known for a while, thanks to the intrepid work of Chris Sim at Kadaxis, that Amazon’s machine learning algorithms combine keywords into derived keywords. So, if you give them “cookbook recipes diet keto” (without any semicolons or duplication) their system should show your book in the search results for “keto cookbook,” “keto recipes,” or “keto diet.”

All that being said, the recommendation about not using semicolons is just that: a recommendation. We don’t recommend worrying about that limitation at the moment, as it just makes compliance with industry standards harder.

[Update 3/25/2020: Amazon has confirmed that “the use of semicolons and spaces are accepted for keywords, though optional, and do not count toward the total limit of 250 bytes. Publishers can continue to submit keywords with semicolons and spaces following EDItEUR best practices, or just semicolons if following the BISG best practices.”]

Changes for Eloquence on Demand

In an effort to help our clients become more compliant with the 250-byte limit, we are now offering a solution for publishers who send keywords to Amazon. The Eloquence on Demand service can automatically limit the number of bytes we send to Amazon on your behalf to keep you under the limit. If you choose to turn on this feature, our cloud will find the 250-byte point in your list of keywords, back up to the previous semicolon, and truncate the list at that point in your Amazon feed.

This new option allows publishers to meet the requirements for Amazon without affecting the number of keywords entered in Title Management or sent to other trading partners, like Apple; they are currently accepting up to 1000 characters’ worth of keywords.

To have this feature implemented, contact our support team. No action is needed if you do not wish to limit the number of keywords sent to Amazon. If you would like to discuss other options, or if you are concerned about how to best implement keywords within your team, our support team can help.

Keep an eye on this space for further news and thoughts about this change and others.

Firebrand Technologies Launches Eloquence on Alert

Firebrand Technologies, a trusted leader in technology services for the publishing industry, knows that smarter decisions come from better intelligence. With that in mind, Firebrand is pleased to announce the public launch of Eloquence on Alert, its newest title performance monitoring product.

Eloquence on Alert’s proprietary data gathering service collects key, hard-to-access details about products from major online marketplaces and review sites, to put all that information directly at publishers’ fingertips. Firebrand has been collecting, reviewing, and analyzing this specific data internally for over two years, and has developed a robust tool that is targeted to the unique needs of publishers. With this new application, publishers can see and interact with important data about price changes, missing buy buttons, products that suddenly disappear, third party sellers taking over the buy box, and more.

These details are made available in a dedicated interface, with powerful alerts, search, and classification tools to help publishers address problems and leverage opportunities like never before.

“Eloquence on Alert helps publishers identify issues and trends that would be very difficult to discern otherwise, saving them time and money and allowing for the reallocation of resources to new or different projects,” said Catherine Toolan, Firebrand’s Director of Eloquence Services.

The Eloquence on Alert service is available to publishers via a monthly subscription, and is not bundled with other Firebrand products. Find out more and sign up for a demo at http://eloquenceonalert.com.

To learn more about Firebrand Technologies, please visit: www.firebrandtech.com, or email info@firebrandtech.com.

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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 Elephants on Demand!

[Editor’s note: In case it was not clear, this was an April Fool’s joke. No elephants were harmed in the making of this video.]

Firebrand is constantly innovating and evolving — looking for the most effective strategies to help publishers succeed in the marketplace.

We are excited to announce the launch of our newest metadata delivery service, Elephants on Demand!

Elephants on Demand helps you get your heaviest and most important metadata where it needs to go. No longer do you have to worry about an intern dropping your fragile metadata on the way to the retailer, or one of the monkeys running the vacuum tubes getting their tubes crossed. No longer will your fully-fleshed-out metadata be left in the office because the designated carrying service can’t lift anything with a Table of Contents, an Excerpt, and 10 Review Quotes.

Elephants on Demand can handle any metadata load you give it, from the smallest to the largest. We have scoured the globe to find the fastest and hardiest elephants available, and we have already started to put them to work for you.

“This is a truly remarkable innovation in metadata delivery, which I know will make a huge impact on visibility,” said Catherine Toolan, Director of Elephant Services at Firebrand. “We have already been impressed with how quickly the service has been accepted by major retailers, and we are looking forward to expanding the reach of the service internationally with our upcoming Elephant Seal expansion.”

For more information on this new service, please watch our introductory video below.