In 2023, we focused on improving and extending the core Edelweiss service to make book professionals' workflow smoother, faster, and more efficient.
We made significant technology upgrades to improve the reliability and flexibility of our tools while releasing thoughtful new products to support publishers' sales and marketing efforts. With the expansion of our Client Success team, we have also increased our investment in user education, part of our commitment to promote rewarding and successful experiences for everyone who comes to the site. In addition, we have continued to put resources towards broadening our international reach. In 2023, our growing International team onboarded and trained an enthusiastic legion of UK booksellers and publisher partners on the platform.
It has been a joy working with all the publishers who use Edelweiss to do their jobs, and we remain dedicated to serving you at every stage of the book's journey. Check out some highlights from the past year below!
members of the edelweiss community
The number of users active on Edelweiss continues to grow year after year. Up from 2022, the number of unique users on the site has increased 10%. And, 59 U.S. indie bookstores began sending us their POS data this year—bringing the total number of U.S. Trade Analytics Stores to 661 in Q3 of 2023.
Upgrades to the Tools You Rely On
In 2023, we undertook a series of technical upgrades to boost the speed and reliability of the tools and products our users rely on every day. Our Data Operations team worked to expand our support for ONIX 3, and we are ending the year with over 50% of Edelweiss publishers sending their data in the format. ONIX 3 is now our preferred method of receiving data and offers more options and flexibility than previous versions.
This year we also devoted resources to migrating elements of the Edelweiss site, such as the Order Management Module (OMM), to faster, more stable technology. As part of this effort, we have updated one of our most used pages on Edelweiss, the Catalog Title List View. Currently in beta, our new List View is designed to address common user feedback and improve the efficiency of the buying process on our site. This fall, we invited bookstore buyers from across all the regions to test out and provide feedback on the proposed changes. After buyer feedback is collected and implemented, we will invite sales reps and other publisher users to participate in the beta and contribute to the development of a new List View that improves the experience of all users on our site.
explore the new edelweiss list view
Release Statistics
We are invested in adding features and tools in response to user feedback and in catching any bugs before they effect your workflow. Find detailed release notes here and bookmark this page to stay on top of changes, fixes, and enhancements!
new offerings to support your sales and marketing goals
In addition to upgrading our site technology, we have updated our tools and offerings to better meet publishers’ sales and marketing needs. We made substantial changes to bring our newest product Edelweiss Designer out of beta to share with all publishers. An add-on to Catalog Services, Designer simplifies and streamlines the process of creating a wide range of sales and marketing assets. Subscribers to Designer can build flexible templates that their whole team can use to generate catalogs, sell sheets, and more. These documents populate using metadata pulled directly from Edelweiss and update automatically as site information does.
create + customize the ideal presentation of your titles with designer
We also revised our promotion and newsletter offerings to make your titles better stand out to the over 200,000 book professionals who use our site. Based on your feedback, this summer we added two additional promotional opportunities for publishers. Publishers can now collaborate with Edelweiss to send a dedicated e-blast to our list of over 100,000 subscribers across the US, Canada, and Australia. We are also offering a select amount of in-platform engagements, advertisements that appear within Edelweiss to our active users.
This summer we also redesigned our weekly newsletter, which is sent to our full list of users, to reduce noise and emphasize titles releasing that week. The relaunched Weekly Greeting also makes it easier for the readers, booksellers, and librarians who receive it to see the new review copies and catalogs you’ve added to the site. Publishers can book a variety of advertisements in the Weekly Greeting, as well as in our many other newsletter options, via our Advertising Center, which came out of beta this year. The Advertising Center provides a simple way to book and manage your newsletter promotions, including the ability to view your upcoming booked ads and upload assets after booking.
Finally, we launched Edelweiss Book Lists in 2023. This project brings together publishers looking to get the word out about their books with booksellers and librarians seeking relevant, diverse titles for their shelves. For free, publishers can submit up to two titles per imprint to themed monthly lists that we then share with our bookseller and librarian users.
discover our advertising options
User Activity Over the Last 12 Months
User engagement grows year after year across many of our activity metrics. Of particular note are user reviews, which are up 26% from 2022, and DRC downloads—we saw 133,400 more advanced copies downloaded from our site this year than last year.
expanded client support & education
As part of our ongoing commitment to enhance the experience of users on our site, we have recently restructured our internal Client Success team to center education and further a holistic understanding of our products and their benefits. Over the past year, this team has worked to build and fortify industry partnerships, ensuring that key Edelweiss initiatives remain in alignment with the objectives of our partners and their members. With the exponential growth in indie booksellers over the last few years, we made it a priority to attend and provide impactful education at as many industry shows as possible over 2023. This year we were able to attend and offer sessions at Winter Institute, Children’s Institute, and all the regional fall shows.
In order to help users better leverage the full potential of Edelweiss, all our teams have collaborated this year to develop a more strategic approach towards sharing information about product enhancements and new tools. This work is in-process and, in addition to educational webinars, streamlined landing pages, and a new website, we are currently building in-site learning modules for our products. These will bring our documentation and videos directly to you as you are learning and relearning features throughout the site.
share your feedback with us
Book Professional Affiliations
Our book professional communities on Edelweiss are composed of verified members of that particular group. Publishers can grant these communities access to their DRCs, and their members can collaborate on lists of titles and communicate with one another in Edelweiss Community. As relevant, they can also submit their reviews to IndieNext and LibraryReads lists.
Year after year, DRC downloads in the ABA Community grows—up 118% over the past two years! And, membership in the B&N Community has steadily increased over the same time period, up 76% at the close of Q3 of 2023.
Increased International Reach
We have expanded our International Team this year, reflecting exciting growth in this area. Not only have we seen an increase in international users but also, and more importantly, an increase in the level of engagement and enthusiasm from UK booksellers on the platform. We have trained a large number of shops in a variety of Edelweiss functions—from buying to email marketing with Edelweiss360 to inventory management with Edelweiss Analytics (with over 320 UK shops now currently sharing Analytics data!).
At the same time, more UK publisher partners have joined the fold, which is helping realize the benefits of a "single platform" solution for selling and buying that we have long seen in the US. We are also working with industry partners in Australia to build on a foundation there as well. Finally, this year also saw the launch of the UK Weekly Greeting email, which shares new title releases and review copies in a fresh and engaging format that offers a marketing option for partner publishers who would like to reach the UK market.
learn more about uk promotions
International User Activity
We are excited about the engagement we've seen among U.K. users over 2023! The amount of UK booksellers ordering on Edelweiss (and the order volume!) is growing steadily over the past two years to reach new highs.
Our Plans for 2024
In addition to an invitation to test our new Catalog Title List View, publishers should keep an eye out for these developments in 2024!
edelweiss designer email integration
We can’t wait to take Edelweiss Designer to the next level and are already hard at work developing new features for the product. In the next year, we are looking to add the ability for publishers to develop email templates within Designer. Publishers using Designer will then be able to export these creative email campaigns from Edelweiss to send.
increased investment in products and services sustainability
In 2024, we will continue a project to centralize logging for data ingest processes and add increased logging where needed. This work will aid our Data Ops and Help Desk teams in troubleshooting data ingest problems to better support publishers on Edelweiss. Longer term, it will establish a foundation for an email alert system to notify users of the status of various ingest processes.
On the Education side, we are working to nurture sustainable use of our services via a new, in-site educational program. This program will make available learning modules specific to a user's role and based on fundamental Edelweiss skills (such as "Buying," "Catalog Administration," "Promoting Titles," and more). The program will break each skill down into smaller “Milestones,” representing a central element within the identified area, and help users find their way to relevant resources to master that area.
Developed with feedback from a pilot with select booksellers this summer, this program will provide users a more structured way to learn (or relearn!) about Edelweiss and to better integrate our help documentation into the site. We also plan to include the ability for users to test and check their knowledge with short quizzes on Edelweiss topics.
continued international market growth
In 2024, we will continue nurturing the UK Edelweiss ecosystem from both the publisher and retailer sides. In addition, we know that the Spanish-language market is an area of growth for many publishers and, to this end, we are devoting resources to better support Spanish-language publishers as well as the retailers and readers seeking these books. We are exploring the addition of a Global Spanish Market in which Edelweiss publishers can make their titles available. A translation of the Edelweiss site for Spanish-speaking users is currently in-progress as well.