BiblioFlow, a project focused on streamlining assets and metadata through an intuitive UI to increase efficiency and improve user experience, is set to take center stage at Virtusales Publishing Solutions at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair. BiblioFlow, the latest addition to Virtusales’s enterprise-class publishing management system BiblioSuite, is moving away from its traditional modular approach to one that will make workflows easier, faster, and smoother.
“Publishers with our digital asset management (DAM) module will see the greatest change and benefit,” says director of marketing and communications Kat Coveyduck. “Users will find functionalities such as uploading and sharing digital assets integrated directly into their workflow, which eliminates the need to access separate screens or modules and allows them to seamlessly carry out their day-to-day tasks with fewer clicks and less navigation around the system.”
University of Pennsylvania Press, for instance, is using BiblioFlow to manage POD and e-book files, allowing them to be seamlessly distributed via ONIX and enabling smoother and more efficient workflows. In the trade sector, a major publisher has optimized its jacket briefing process using BiblioFlow. “Previously, briefing notes and images were held in various documents and emails,” Coveyduck says. “Now, everything is centralized within BiblioSuite, eliminating the need for external documentation and fostering better collaboration.” Meanwhile SNR Audio benefits by using BiblioFlow to store and distribute chapter-level audio files. This integration ensures that content reaches retailers directly, streamlining the entire distribution process and supporting timely releases.
“Going forward, BiblioFlow will further improve its usability through more fully featured intelligent dashboards with supporting AI,” says Coveyduck, whose team at Virtusales AI Lab continues to add new AI tools to undertake more automation throughout the publishing process. “These dashboards will run across the whole footprint of BiblioSuite, starting with marketing and publicity and streamlining rights, permissions, image rights, and third party rights.”
AI, says CEO Philip Turner, “is about helping Virtusales to create a software that will safely and securely become a partner, coworker, advisor, and mentor to publishers, helping and advising them in making the most optimized decisions along the publishing workflow, ultimately saving time and money.” For now, Virtusales’s foray into AI covers areas such as image tagging, generating keywords, facilitating translations, and suggesting marketing copy.
“Each assistive tool is designed to address specific pain points and enhance efficiency throughout publishing workflows,” Turner says. “Additionally, we have been working on AI solutions that enhance our internal operations and recently launched an in-house prototype of ChatGPT, called VirtusalesGPT, along with other tools enabling us to build, test, and deliver Biblio functionality faster.”
Throughout its AI journey, user involvement remains paramount at Virtusales. “BiblioSuite will engage users at the inception and culmination of every AI process, emphasizing collaboration and human oversight,” Turner says. “By integrating AI seamlessly into existing workflows and championing a user-centric approach, we ensure that our innovations enhance—rather than disrupt—the publishing experience.”
Take the experience of one academic publisher: by using BiblioSuite AI to add keywords to backlist titles, the publisher has generated enquiries and sales on books that had not had any interest in a long while. The addition has a direct positive impact, rejuvenating the client’s backlist visibility in an efficient and cost-effective way.
This client is just one of the 400 publishers—which include Penguin Random House, Disney, Elsevier, Macmillan, Oxford University Press, Bloomsbury, and Hachette—that are powered by Virtusales’s workflow solutions, often across multiple publishers and countries. Penguin Random House, for example, uses BiblioSuite to support all of its subsidiaries and imprints across 16 countries, including the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and the DK Group.
“Aside from our menu-based approach offering deep domain functionality that covers every aspect of the publishing process, BiblioSuite leverages the latest Microsoft and Google Angular technologies to deliver a robust, secure, and future-proofed platform along with a modern and accessible UI,” Turner says. “It also offers rich AI- and API-driven publishing-specific features, including metadata enhancement, seamless audiobook conversion, dynamic price templates, and two state-of-the-art portals: a Royalty Portal delivering statements to authors and agents and a Partner and Licensing portal for improving workflows with third parties.”
BiblioSuite “embodies a best-of-breed ethos,” Turner says. “With regular releases every ten weeks, we are constantly expanding and evolving our publishing solution to meet the changing needs of the publishing industry.”
Visit booth F81 in Hall 4.1 to learn more about Virtusales, BiblioFlow, and BiblioSuite.
