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Software for publishers, seforim distribution and print
A publisher with a distribution arm is running two businesses: a catalog of titles with print runs and royalties, and a wholesale trade shipping to shops. They are usually tracked in different places, and the join between them is done by hand.
How it usually works today
- Titles, print runs and stock tracked separately from trade orders.
- Royalty calculations assembled by hand at the end of a period.
- Trade customers ordering by phone against a price list that has drifted.
- Reprint decisions made without a clear picture of what is actually moving.
- Print production queues managed on a board or in a thread.
What replaces it
- One record per title, carrying its print runs, stock and sales.
- Royalties derived from recorded sales instead of reconstructed.
- Trade ordering against current pricing, with account history attached.
- Movement per title visible, so reprints are a decision rather than a guess.
- Production tracked as stages with a clear queue.
The title is the unit, not the SKU
Publishing does not fit retail inventory software cleanly, because a title has editions, formats, print runs and a royalty obligation attached to it. Modelling the title properly and letting stock hang off it is what makes reprint decisions and royalty statements fall out of the system rather than being separate projects.
Print production is a queue with proofs in it
For a printer taking invitation and bencher work, the proofing rounds are the schedule. Each job sits waiting on a customer response, and knowing which jobs are waiting on you versus waiting on them is most of the management problem. That is a workflow with states, and it is exactly what gets managed in an email thread until it is built.
Tell us what your business runs on.
We start by drawing how the work actually moves through your business. That drawing is yours whether or not you build with us.
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