As well as running an award-winning independent publisher ourselves since 2003, we benefit from working with hundreds of publishing professionals around the world. This privileged viewpoint means we get to see the woods for the trees – to see the patterns in how publishers of different shapes and sizes tackle and overcome the problems we all face. These blog posts are a collection of insights gathered from this wide range of experiences, coupled with our technical expertise.
APIs, ONIX & data feeds
To be the first to know about new blog posts from Consonance (I know! It is exciting, you’re right...
Pretty exciting times over here at Consonance Towers, as we gear up for the launch of our new metadata...
Unshackle your data and free your time with GraphQL
It’s 2022 and instead of technology making your job easier it’s just adding another layer of inescapable...
The insiders' guide to an ONIX file
There’s a new way of seeing your previous ONIX in Consonance. It’s called the ONIX fragments page...
The latest Thema updates have been released with 744 new codes, bringing the total to 6,748, and are...
The ONIX Standard is not very standard
Here at Consonance we send ONIX to over a hundred recipients, and I think it’s fair to say that no...
Publishers hack their own bibliographic data
Well, that’s an intriguing headline.
Perhaps an even more stunning headline is Publishers Hack Their...
Why incremental ONIX changes are best, and hard
When first discussing an ONIX feed with a potential recipient, amid all of the minutiae of their preferences...
How to create a catalogue automatically using ONIX and InDesign
Did you go into publishing so that you could spend your days copying and pasting ever-changing metadata...
How APIs can make publishing more efficient
As a rule, application programming interfaces, or APIs, aren’t easy to talk about.
For instance,...
Three ways to do more with ONIX
A quick primer: ONIX is a list of tags that we in the book trade have agreed to use to describe our...
API is one of those acronyms you hear bandied about. “APIs”, people say, “are vital. Vital!” But if...
Case studies
Taylor & Francis ONIX, by Consonance
Consonance.app now manages all of Taylor & Francis ONIX for Books.
A few years ago we were approached...
We have had the pleasure of working with LUP since 2015 when they migrated to us from a legacy platform...
In 2014, a group of friends with a background in publishing launched Book Dash in South Africa. Their...
Bedford Square Publishers, rooted in the rich history of London and Brighton’s Bedford Square, has...
Established in 1971, Leuven University Press’ foundation goes hand in hand with the long-standing...
Burleigh Dodds Science Publishing
Burleigh Dodds Science Publishing are just three years old, but the founders come from rich stock...
Zed Books had a storming year in 2017. In this post, we explain how Consonance played a part in their...
We were extremely excited to hear from IOP Publishing. Science publishers do vital and inspiring work...
Improving your publishing through technology
Project management in Consonance – keep the data near the dates
There is no shortage of project management systems available for you to choose.
As a team...
These searches were not possible until today:
Find the paperbacks that do not have an accompanying...
Whilst we tend to release little and often, Spring 2025 brings a major upgrade to Consonance. Read...
Thoughtful little innovations, at the London Book Fair '23
I’m happy to share this playlist of a few short videos that highlight some of the little innovations...
When the lockdown started, one of our first remotely-held planning meetings was to brainstorm what...
Michael Tamblyn’s keynote at the BISG got a lot of heads nodding here at General Products. Here’s...
The hidden dangers of spreadsheets
A cannabis-growing firm recently had to issue an embarrassing correction to the financial authorities...
Ruby code and why you should care
Ruby is the primary programming language that Consonance is written in, chosen for its readability...
How big is your company’s contact database? How many authors has your company ever published? How...
This is not the formulaic project management of other industries
As publishers ourselves, we know that one of the big challenges of running your company is to manage...
If you are a Consonance client, you have always been able to click a button to download your metadata...
Hidden benefits of a single source of bibliographic truth
I’ve noticed an interesting side-effect to using Consonance. If you use one of the features that presents...
So where are we with the frontlist?
It's the question everyone in publishing dreads.
Like Anna, an editorial assistant...
A quick look at data visualisation and analysis
I’ve recently been harking back to my roots as a veteran Business Intelligence architect, which was...
The search for publishing's holy grails
‘Ask me the questions, bridgekeeper. I am not afraid’
There are certain enigmas in publishing, certain...
The real price of a strategy shift
Whatever your strategy, you need to pay a “strategy tax.”
I wrote this article about the cost of...
How to avoid making a rod for your own back with data
Technical debt is what you accrue when you write bad code or take some expedient shortcut or just...
Stay small or scale? Be clever about your size
In a barney with Amazon about terms, being massive makes for a fairer fight: if retailers are going...
Picking the right software tools for publishing
“What you have to understand about us,” says every publisher ever, “is that we are a little bit different...
Responsibility, Authority, Capability
Publishing is full of tensions. Indies versus conglomerates. Trade versus academic. Start-ups versus...
Six things to do the moment you get back from vacation (disclaimer – you might have to resign)
So I’m just back from a glorious holiday up in Scotland with the boys. We piled onto the Caledonian...
No computer system can fix a broken publisher
With stability taking hold of the hybrid print-digital market after years of rapid ebook growth, many...
You don't need special software to store data properly
The way I drive, sometimes, you wouldn’t think I believe in mechanical sympathy. But I can assure...
Is your strategy setting you up for disappointment?
Skills development, well-thought-through workflows, decent transactional websites, careful integrations...
Discoverability? That's not nearly enough.
Discoverability isn’t nearly enough. Discoverability relies on someone actively trying to discover...
Why ‘easy’ publishing solutions hardly ever are
Almost every week, a new technological innovation comes to market, promising to save publishers money...
Trust the experts or learn the tech? How to make decisions in publishing
Making decisions in an information vacuum is a publishing speciality.
Every time you acquire a book...
Creative industries and the division of labour
How do you arrange people in a modern company?
It’s an endlessly interesting question, and one that...
ISBN is to book as what is to person?
David Aldridge went to the BIC Building a Better Business seminar at the London Book Fair last week...
ONIX & data feeds
A non-technical, beginners' guide to ONIX for Books
ONIX is a type of XML (whatever that is)
ONIX is built using something called XML. Let’s not worry...
Publisher websites
Why publishers must use direct sales
If you were writing a business plan to set up a new consumer goods business, which of the following...
To go direct, publishers must mean business
Originally published on Digital Book World in 2015.
The arithmetic of publishing is fairly straightforward...
Don’t outsource your publishing business away
In the debate over whether to rely on outsourcing or develop skills in-house, I come down firmly on...
Who has the balance of power over data?
Who has access to the data that can best predict how readers will spend their money? Who has data...
Running a publishing start up
2024 was a busy year! We:
🌟 Managed 1.3 million products.
📎 Sent 85,000 ONIX files on behalf of...
Pandemic update
Update, Janury 2021
As England goes into another full lockdown today, with schools closed until mid...
Some lovely news for us in all of this: we are delighted to announce that Deanna Marbeck joins our...
Brighton Ruby, why's (Poignant) Guide, and justsimply.dev
For a weekend side project for the last few months, I’ve been producing this year’s Brighton Ruby...
Ariana writes: “For the last month or so I have had the amazing opportunity to be an intern with Snowbooks...
Nine hard-earned pieces of advice for publishing start-ups
Being an indentured employee is how most people pay the bills. But about 12 years ago I started down...
Grants and sources of funding for software development
Ring the good news bell! We have been awarded a ~£20k Innovation Support for Business government grant...
The clouds have parted... introducing Consonance
After a 10x increase in customers, Bibliocloud has outgrown its start-up roots to become a mature...
The technical story of our rebrand (for non-technical readers)
Everyone in our team is a programmer. But we also cover all the other business functions between us...
No longer an oxymoron – beautiful publishing software
In early 2011, our CEO Emma Barnes sat at the kitchen table and wrote the first lines of Ruby code...
How we unbranded our software company
The Consonance promise is:
to harmonise publishing businesses’ processes, by sharing our expertise...
'Continuing to solve real problems': Futurebook 40, London Book Fair 2018 and the Works page
Just in time for the London Book Fair this week, check out the new works page.
As you probably know...
Never ones to rest on our laurels, here’s our new website. In my previous post (originally for our...
A range of Consonance customisations
“We see how well you service publishers day in and day out.” –NBN International via Twitter
This is a long post, so here’s the summary:
* We’re going to work on the things you have told us...
It does give me a more than mild sense of vertigo to think about how much we’ve done. And whilst,...
Sara O'Connor to join the team!
Huge news from us today on day 2 of the London Book Fair 2017. Here’s the full press release! Thanks...
We were completely delighted this week to be awarded the GBS Services to Independent Publishers award...
I’m beyond delighted to share some wonderful news. Andy Pearson will be joining the Consonance team...
Technical skills in publishing
Introduction to publishing management software
Introduction to publishing management systems
If you don’t currently have access to a publishing...
On the road again! Emma & Sara were on a Book Machine panel with Lola Odelola and Janneke Niessen
SYP Oxford Coding at the Castle
Last night, two of us (Emma & Sara) were pleased to be invited to speak at the Society of Young Publishers...
What publishers need to know about Ruby on Rails
Since so much of the publishing ecosystem is becoming more and more web-based every day, it helps...
Publishers can learn a few things from programmers
As both a publisher and a programmer, I’m a member of a very select club. I’ve been struck by many...
Learning how to code, the long way around
I’d always meant to learn to code, but there never seemed to be a good time.
I graduated in 1996...
It's us in the industry who need to be able to code
I have a dreadful confession: I still use my fingers to do mental arithmetic. After a couple of decades...
When I graduated with an archaeology degree in 1996, and got a job as a management trainee for a global...
On Thursday, in conjunction with BookMachine, the Consonance team ran a workshop to teach 30-odd publishers...
Futurebook manifesto for skills
This appeared in Futurebook and was also delivered at the Futurebook conference
Whatever the other...
A day in the life of a programmer
First published here.
Emma Barnes taught herself to code after founding her own independent publisher...
Menial publishing jobs are destroying our future
It is easy to look at a creative, or an entrepreneurial person, and assume that they do what they...