Mastering the crisis with creativity – BoD experiences self-publishing boom

While in the COVID-19 crisis many booksellers all of a sudden relied almost exclusively on their digital distribution channels (their own online shops) and some of them started to promote them aggressively for the first time, BoD has always focused on digital procedures: from es-tablishing contacts to production and printing to delivery – everything is based on digital pro-cesses. And even though the traditional book wholesalers and bookstores remain the main distribution channels, online merchants and marketplaces are becoming increasingly im-portant. Thus, the digital connection to the amazon and eBay marketplaces in 2017 was an important step towards increasing reach and internationalization. The “novomind iMARKET” software ensures that the technological marketplace integration is as simple as it is reliable.

“Even though online marketplaces are currently still additions to the main distribution channels for us, we are feeling the effect of the marketplace integration,” reports Dr. Robertz. “They are part of our digital footprint and increase the visibility of our authors’ works.” As a result, the in-formation on the availability of the works published can also be better displayed and con-trolled. “The marketplace integration made sense and has been effective. We will also exam-ine the possibility of expanding to European marketplaces in the coming months.”

In terms of content, BoD’s portfolio covers almost the entire spectrum of publications – from guidebooks, diploma theses and final papers to novels and children’s books to companies’ annual reports; BoD even prints B2B commissioned works. Incidentally, the first book pub-lished through BoD in the print-on-demand process on 1 July 1998 was the Constitution of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg.