Things to consider before purchasing a publishing management system

This brief document is not intended to be a comprehensive guide to the implementation of our Anko Publishing Manager software but is intended to give pause for thought for publishers thinking of purchasing management software. The document is based on solid experience of implementing our software for publishers large and small across all sectors of the industry.

The Right Choice?

The first thing we would emphasise is to be sure of what you want. Is the Anko Publishing Manager the solution for you? More than any other publish ing software house, we put the tools at your disposal for making the right decision. None of our competitors allow you to trial their software and certainly not for free. A trial version of the Anko Publishing Manager is freely available as a download from our web-site so you can test run it and see exactly what information is held and what features/functionality we include as standard. And of course, the complete manual is available to give you an insight into any additional areas of functionality not included in the trial. But this means you must put the time in to fully research our solutions and those of our competitors and match these with your requirements.

The Real Cost isn’t the price of the software

The Anko Publishing Manager is as affordable as we can possibly make it. In terms of cost, and functionality it compares more than favourably with other publishing management solutions. But, and there is a ‘but’, you must account for possible substantive internal implementation costs - which will apply to whatever software solution you purchase . You are purchasing software that may touch every area of your business, and consequently will need considerable time, and resources dedicated to pre-planning, and successful implementation.

Allocate Proper Resource Internally

Many publishers do not allocate proper internal resource to manage the implementation process. In some cases, the implementation is simply an additional burden thrust at the last minute in a disorganised manner on already hard-pressed staff. Asking the provider of the software to ‘pick up the baton’ for you will be an expensive and unsatisfactory process for both parties.

Get Your Staff to Believe In It

The implementation will only be successful if your staff are behind it. You will need their support, so involve them at an early stage in developing the case for change and the requirements to make that change..

Do Your Homework

Every area of the publishing process within your organisation may be impacted upon. That information must be somewhere currently. Someone must be responsible for it currently. A process for managing that process and the associated information must be in place. Pull this information together before you implement the solution, not two or three months afterwards.

You Can Only Get Out What You Put In

The Anko Publishing Manager (APM) or indeed any other software solution will only be effective if the information within is as complete and up to date as possible. Much of the information within the APM is already being stored in your building somewhere. The marketing blurbs in Quark file AI sheets? Your
reviews in a collection of Microsoft Word documents on the desktop of a marketing administrators Mac? The contents of an author contract in a Microsoft Word template with a commissioning editor, with the sales figures needed to generate a royalty statement in a separate Microsoft Excel document in accounts, or even with your distributor. Any of this sound familiar?

The Anko Publishing Manager gives you the opportunity to get all this information into one place and to have common-sense links between related information. But it has to be put in there first, and be as complete and accurate as you can make it, and maintained in that fashion. We cannot count the number of times clients has started talking about their reporting requirements, having given little or no consideration to organising the correct and accurate recording of the necessary information within APM in order to generate the level of reporting to which they aspire. So have a plan for moving your legacy information across. You may need to carry out an information 'audit' in the weeks before the implementation. It is also a good idea to ensure that the burden doesn't fall on any one member of staff, ensure those responsible for particular areas are responsible for the integrity of that information. This process is often a catalyst for what amounts to a house cleaning exercise which in our experience is invariably way overdue.

If your software supplier is involved in migrating your data for you, and you are supplying spreadsheets or other electronic documents make sure they are correct before you send them. Your software supplier is not in a position to gauge the accuracy or otherwise of your information. It is your responsibility and failing to pick it up will mean imports and so on may have to be repeated and the consequential costs will be your responsibility.

Be Realistic About Time

In our experience most publishers are not realistic about the amount of time that is required for preplanning, preparation and, implementation of a substantive publishing management system. You may have thousands of titles, and all their related information, which needs to be checked and put into appropriate form. You may have to consider internal work-flows, and the way in which information moves through and around people and departments as part of your publishing process and how this may po- tentially be the subject of radical change. And don't forget staff may need a great deal of time to get used to a new system and may have to do their learning at the same time as they have to get on with the business of getting books out of the door.
Be prepared for it to take up to 12 months for you to be fully utilising your publishing manager to its full capacity.

Appoint an Internal Project Co-ordinator/Manager

It is crucial to appoint one person to oversee and manage the implementation project internally. The project manager should be at the heart of pulling all your data together in an accurate and acceptable form for importation into your new system, and to whom all internal personnel involved in the project report, and who is also the principal point of contact with your software supplier.

Don't Bespoke the Life Out of Your Software

If the software is too far removed from what you actually want - don't buy it! You will save yourself and your software supplier a great deal of time and money. If you get involved in lots of changing so that the generic package that you bought is now a piece of software particular to you, then the initial cost will escalate beyond recognition, along with support costs, and difficulties in upgrading.

You can downlaod a PDF Version of this article from our download area.