RSuite Cloud the industry's first hosted end-to-end content management and automated publishing system, allows book publishers to create, manage, and distribute single-source content to multiple channels.

The Joss Group awarded RSuite Cloud the prestigious Seybold Report “Hot Pick.” The Seybold Report Hot Pick designation is given to products, technologies, and services that add obvious value to professional publishing processes and reflect the Seybold editors’ vision of where the industry is heading.

“RSuite Cloud is transforming the world of book publishing,” stated Dan Dube, executive vice president of cloud solutions at Really Strategies. “We believe there should be no barriers for book publishers to deliver content to their audience—in any format, in any language, at any time. RSuite Cloud is already making that happen, both at global publishing houses and at small boutique publishing firms.”

“When I saw this solution transform Word manuscripts into XML and then automatically publish print and e-books, I realized RSuite Cloud is how book publishers can get into the world of XML without high cost,” explains Molly Joss, owner and publisher of the Seybold Report.

Want to see RSuite Cloud for yourself?

At Really Strategies we are fortunate to work with a variety of publishers: journal, book, scholarly, trade, technical. Obviously each publisher has a different approach for navigating the digital publishing landscape.

What we often see are publishers who are creating loads of wonderful digital content yet their digital supply chains are heavily tied to the print medium. According to the American Association of Publishers,

“e-books have grown from 0.6% of the total Trade market share in 2008 to 6.4% in 2010. While that represents a small amount in the total market for formats, it translates to 1274.1% in publisher net sales revenue year-over-year with total net revenue for 2010 at $878 Million.”

This means content supply chains need to change in order to properly prepare for a digitally focused content marketplace. Download our latest whitepaper to understand best practices for a long-term digital publishing strategy.

Situation:  Publishers want a content management system to be flexible and adaptable at a low cost.

Reality:  Unlike desktop applications, enterprise content management systems change and sometimes pretty often.  Publishers are often surprised by the amount of changes a CMS requires after the initial implementation.  That is because a CMS changes to meet the way your organization wants to work, not force you down a path such as Microsoft Word.  Yes, Word can be customized, but a CMS can truly evolve as your organization evolves its processes and workflow.  In the pure definition of a system, it is one that never stops changing.  You can read between the lines here and either ignore the fact that a CMS will require a budget to make changes as your organization changes or you can budget the appropriate time and money to keep the system current and reflect user needs.  Systems don’t change by themselves and the flexibility you get with a CMS comes at a cost.  If you want a system that is inexpensive and inflexible, that is fine, but be ready for unhappy users.

Best Practice:  In our experience publishers who budgeted between 25% and 50% of the original project implementation costs for changes after the initial launch were able to respond to user change requests in a timely manner.   

Every publisher manages projects and budgets differently.  As a CMS vendor we understand that.  It is imperative for publishers to understand though that a system will require changes after it goes live and this is perfectly natural as a system is used by the staff.  Those publishers who budget for and plan out a period of time after CMS launch to complete user change requests will ultimately have higher user adoption across the organization.  Higher user adoption equals higher organizational efficiency. 

What are your experiences with system changes post-launch?

The 2011 RSuite User Conference takes place in Philadelphia at the Chemical Heritage Foundation Conference Center and you are invited:

On October 25, 2011 publishing executives will meet in Philadelphia to learn how content management is the key to building a successful digital publishing strategy. This 1-day event is open to both RSuite customers and publishing executives who want to understand how better content management increases revenue and profit growth.

Really Strategies is delighted to announce that Molly Joss from The Seybold Report will serve as the official Tweeter for this event. The Seybold Report is the definitive and independent source of information about the technologies used for publishing and printing. As official Tweeter for the event, Molly is sure to lead a secondary conversation in the Twittersphere highlighing metrics that RSuite customers will share about their experience with the only CMS built for the publishing industry.

Check out the following links to learn more about

• The 2011 RSuite User Conference
• Registration for the Conference
• The Seybold Report
• What our customers are saying

SLACK, Inc. is an independent STM publishing company founded in 1923. SLACK publishes a combination of products, including books, journals, and newspapers. SLACK implemented RSuite CMS by Really Strategies, Inc. as its content management system (CMS) to automate distribution of its journal content to licensing channels.

“RSuite has replaced many manual processes performed by production and support staff,” said Jennifer Kilpatrick, Editorial Director of SLACK, Inc Healthcare Books and Journals. “In addition, it has allowed seamless automated delivery to our partners and websites. This has created more business opportunities and provided a searchable repository for our journal content for future repurposing.”

[click here to read the press release]

Last week as I was driving through Penn's campus, I noticed a sign for "ebook rentals." What did that mean and what is the impact was for publishers?

Today in eBook Newser I learn that Amazon is renting college textbooks on the Kindle. College students can rent textbooks from Amazon for any length of time. The bonus is that any notes students add to their textbooks will be saved via Amazon's Whispersync technology and the students can retrieve the textbooks AND their notes in the future if they decide to purchase the book or rent again.

While I see great advantages for students, I wonder what this means for college textbook publishers. Leave a comment below if you publish textbooks; we'd enjoy hearing your thoughts on this.

BSI recently licensed RSuite CMS (content management system) by Really Strategies, Inc. to manage its complex and extensive content and metadata assets and related editorial and production processes. BSI British Standards is the UK's National Standards Body. “BSI will take advantage of RSuite’s sophisticated workflow functionality to manage content in a range of formats and optimize its editorial and production processes,” stated Rob Diana,  director of product engineering at Really Strategies, Inc.

Click here to read more about BSI's selection of RSuite.

Mark your calendar. On October 25th publishing executives will gather in Philadelphia for the 5th annual RSuite User Conference.

The RSuite User Conference is a forum for publishers who want to learn how content management is the key to building a successful digital publishing strategy. Attendees will hear case studies from some of the world's leading publishers, learning what works and what doesn't work when developing and implementing a CMS.

This year's event will take place at the conference center at the Chemical Heritage Foundation in Old City, Philadelphia.

<update>June 7, 2011</update>

Since announcing the release of the EPUB 3 specification, the blogosphere and tweet streams have been alive with the sound of music to publishers' ears. No doubt Amazon's news that it will finally accept EPUB also adds to the collective hallelujah chorus.

While there is already an abundance of information, news, and opinions on EPUB 3, this post aims to highlight what features and functionality are most important for publishers to understand:

• Improved accessibility support---It's a big deal that DAISY is converging completely with EPUB 3. This will promote rapid take-up of the standard in education and government segments. 
• MathML support---this alone garnered hoots and hollers from RSuite's tech team. No longer must STM publishers sketch out equations as art.
• Embedded fonts---the look and feel of your PDF is maintained because publishers can deliver fonts along with the epub file.
• Improved SVG support---vector graphics mean images scale with your pages and pages are "lighter" thus loading faster.
• New and improved metadata---who doesn't love publication metadata that can include specific handling and distribution instructions!?
• Video and audio support---publishers can synchronize audio with text. This will also raise the bar for all of us, e.g. enabling switching seamlessly between listening in the car and reading at home!
• Javascript---scripting offers chances for interactivity, think forms, etc.
• Layout---multiple columns, hello! Ladders and widows and orphans, goodbye!

We'd love to add your opinions on new functionality to the list. Leave a comment and I'll continue to add on to the bullets.