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.

Amazon 250 Byte Keywords Limit

We have been receiving reports for the last week or two that Amazon has set a limit on the number of keywords that will be indexed for books sold through Vendor Central. This limitation was previously only in place for Seller Central, but Amazon recently updated the documentation for Vendor Central to reflect the limitation, as well. The Vendor Central documentation specifically states:

Our system limits the length of the generic keyword/search terms attribute to less than 250 bytes. It is still possible to go over the limit, but if you do, our search engine will not index any of your entries.

Some clients have been in contact with Vendor Central Support and have received email and phone confirmation that the new limitation does apply to books, and to metadata delivered via ONIX, not just to metadata manually entered in Vendor Central.

We are taking this potential change seriously at Firebrand, and are looking for hard evidence that the limitation is actually being applied to titles. However, so far we have not seen that hard evidence. Also, in our experience Amazon’s support team is not always up-to-date on the technical requirements or application of rules when it comes to ONIX deliveries. These points make us cautious about jumping the gun on changing how keywords are handled in Title Management, Eloquence on Demand, or our Keywords service.

As we are running tests and looking for evidence of if and how this limitation is being applied, we encourage our clients to stay the course and not make changes to their current keywords programs. Again, we don’t have any hard evidence of keywords for titles not being indexed. There is a chance that changing the keywords currently applied to titles could negatively affect your sales rank for those titles unnecessarily. Even if Amazon is enforcing this new rule, they may not be (and from our current tests, are not) enforcing it on already-submitted metadata, choosing instead to only apply it when the keywords are refreshed.

If you have any hard evidence about this issue, especially evidence that the 250 byte limitation has been applied to your titles, making all keywords become un-indexed, please contact Joshua Tallent (joshua@firebrandtech.com) with that information.

We will update this blog post in the future as we learn more.

Community Conference 2018 Wrap-Up

We wanted to to give a big Thank You to everyone who attended the 2018 Community Conference in September! It was definitely one of our best conferences yet, and renewed our confidence that our clients benefit in tangible ways from this bi-annual meeting.

NetGalley posted a great article on their Insights blog last week, Lessons from the Firebrand Community Conference, and we highly recommend you check that out.

Also, Brian O’Leary, Executive Director of BISG, our keynote speaker, has put up the text of his talk, The Art of the Possible, on the BISG website. It is a great read, and worth your time.

The Community Conference comes every other year, but we don’t want to you to have to wait two years to learn with us again. Our Odd Year Conference, a one-day Master Class, is going to be on October 23, 2019, in New York City. We will also have open meeting slots available on the 24th for those who want to sit down with our team and talk shop. Save those dates!

Title Management Version 10 is Available Now!

The newest version of Title Management is here! Join Joshua Tallent for an exciting webinar on May 23, 1:00pm-2:00pm ET, as he gives you a complete overview of the updates and enhancements in version 10, including:

  • Design and framework updates
  • Verification system updates
  • Keywords enhancements
  • Integrated and expanded documentation
  • and more!

This upgrade is being rolled out to clients now, so get prepared for it in advance. Bring your questions about this and anything else related to Title Management for the included Q&A session.

Register Now!

Firebrand Announces Keywords Service in partnership with Kadaxis

Firebrand Technologies, a leader in market intelligence and technology services for the publishing industry, announced today that they have partnered with Kadaxis as the exclusive reseller and advocate of the innovative Audience Analysis and Keyword Creation services.

The Keywords service is available to publishers of any size, for single titles or groups of titles, across any genre or topic. Pay-as-you-go and subscription options are available, as well as premium services that are ideal for pre-pub and frontlist titles, including launch campaigns and other marketing efforts.

This partnership builds on the growing relationship between the two companies over the last few years, which included an extensive research project to track the impact audience-driven keywords have on book sales. The research revealed that titles with Kadaxis-created keywords drive increased discovery and improved sales for both new and backlist titles, across multiple genres.

Despite the impressive impact keywords have proven to have on sales, a surprisingly small number of publishers (only about 25%) are actually applying keywords in a strategic manner. Firebrand and Kadaxis now offer a simple workflow and high impact results to publishers.

“The joint research project conducted by Firebrand and Kadaxis has clearly revealed that the best way to enhance discovery and reach audiences is to understand how they themselves speak about books, in their own language,” said Firebrand President, Doug Lessing. “The Kadaxis service is a perfect fit with Firebrand’s Metadata and Marketing solutions, and we look forward to expanding the reach of the Kadaxis service globally.”

Chris Sim, Kadaxis founder and CEO, explains, “We’ve found a way to create keywords that work, and have helped many publishers increase book sales through keyword optimization. Our partnership with Firebrand will help us to scale operations and meet the increasing demand for our keyword product. Firebrand has served the publishing industry for over thirty years, and their expertise and track record for delivery are well regarded.”

For more information, please visit www.firebrandtech.com/keywords.

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About Kadaxis
Kadaxis uses data science to improve book discovery across the publishing value chain. The company is based in New York, and counts many of the top publishing companies as clients. Our flagship Audience Analysis Keyword product improves the visibility of books in retailer search engines like Amazon search, leading to increased sales. Learn more about us at kadaxis.com or follow us on Twitter @kadaxis.

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.

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.