BISG Board vice chair James Miller and Board chair Joshua Tallent on stage at the Times Center for the BISG Annual Meeting. Image: BISG
By Erin L. Cox, Publisher | @erinlcox
Tallent: ‘Make Big Changes in Small Increments’
On Friday (April 25) in New York City, the United States’ Book Industry Study Group (BISG) hosted its annual meeting at the Times Center. The theme for this year’s meeting was Move Fast and Fix Things which looked at many of the pain points and problems the publishing industry faces in the United States and globally and illustrated ways to solve those problems.
BISG Board chair Joshua Tallent, director of sales and education at Firebrand Technologies, and board vice-chair James Miller, senior director of merchandise at Barnes & Noble, opened the event by delving into the Move Fast and Fix Things theme using Tallent’s work at Firebrand as an example.
Firebrand was founded in 1987, developing technology to support title management with metadata, ePub, sharing digital galleys, and more. As the market changed, Firebrand needed to change as well.
The challenge was how to take a team and software products that had been around for 35 years and adapt them to current needs? And how to change the way a company might do things that required changes from how it had operated in the past?
Tallent said that at Firebrand, they used a sprint system—making small changes quickly, releasing them often, and testing them in the marketplace to see the responses to those changes. These short-term goals could be executed in such a way that they provided long-term benefits as they were developed.
“We can’t make huge changes in a fast way or it could upend the ship,” Tallent said. As each stage is released, the company can detect problems along the way and fix them before moving on to the next change.
“You might break something small, but you don’t want to break big things,” he said.
Dawson: ‘Time Doesn’t Stand Still’
Michael Olenick of Proquest; Geraldine Zephirin of Barnes & Noble; and Connie Harbison of Baker & Taylor discuss BISAC merchandising themes at the BISG 2025 annual meeting. Image: BISG
This metaphor for making positive change in the publishing industry was echoed throughout the day as each panel delved into the work they are doing to solve problems faced in the publishing industry.
Another point made on the second panel with Laura Dawson of Numerical Gurus and the recently retired Phil Madans, formerly executive director of publishing technology with Hachette Book Group (USA) indicated why events like the BISG annual meeting are important because they “get people in the room together” to identify and discuss the problems as the marketplace grows and changes.
“Time doesn’t stand still and you have to meet these new venues and channels where they are,” Dawson noted.
Madans echoed that sentiment and added, “Everything has a lifetime and everything needs a fresh look.”
With that in mind, the BISG committee heads highlighted the work these volunteer groups are doing. This includes:
- Identifying BISAC merchandising themes to help bookstores curate tables for holidays and events,
- Continuing to help publishers prepare for the European Accessibility Act‘s implementation in June,
- Creating royalty statement standards to be launched at Frankfurter Buchmesse (October 15 to 19,
- Barcode price extension recommendations coming next month to highlight the ongoing question of whether or not the barcode should include the price, and
- BISG’s new database, Find a Rightsholder, designed to help those seeking rights or permissions for content published by United States and United Kingdom publishers.
Awards
In addition to highlighting the BISG and its committees are doing, the speakers recognized those companies and individuals for their important work in the industry with three awards:
- The Industry Innovator Award was given to Spotify for its work to support continued strong growth in the audiobook category. Shaena Greenfield, in accepting the honor, noted that one-quarter of Spotify’s users engage with audiobooks and this usage continues to grow.
- The Industry Champion Award was given to Lee Wind, chief content officer for the Independent Book Publishers Association, and co-founder of the national campaign “We Are Stronger Than Censorship,” which is fighting book banning across the United States by buying and donating two books to offset every one book challenge.
- The Sally Dedecker Award for Lifetime Service was presented to Dominique Raccah, Founder and CEO of Sourcebooks, for her many contributions to the industry and her work with BISG.
Lee Wind of IBPA accepts the Industry Champion Award during the Book Industry Study Group’s 2025 annual meeting. Image: BISG
More from Publishing Perspectives on the United States’ Book Industry Study Group (BISG) is here, and more on the US book industry and market is here.