Commentary

The Future of Fulfilment

Editor’s note:

Welcome to this month’s newsletter! It’s been another busy month for us, especially with the beginning of our joint venture with Ulverscroft. As part of this, we are providing a new accessibility focussed website for The Reading House, with Glassboxx integration for audio downloads. It’s especially exciting to be working with a publisher that offers so much content, in so many different ways– although specialising in large print books, the Reading House offers several different types of audiobook, catering to many different preferences.

We were also excited this month to be sponsoring FutureBook, which went from being a one day in-person event to five days of online keynotes, interviews, conferences, and panels. As much as many of us will be missing the atmosphere of a face to face event, I think it’s safe to say that we have all enjoyed five days of discussion and insight – from talks around the future of audio to conversations around diversity and sustainability, the range of topics touched upon has been more varied than ever before. Of course, we enjoyed telling everyone more about Glassboxx during our masterclass – we’re proud to be providing a platform that we can see playing a pivotal role in the growth of digital and the changing face of ecommerce.

Darin Brockman
Firsty Group Founder & CEO

What we can gauge from the last month, and from five days of FutureBook, is that there has been a huge strength of response to new challenges posed by the Covid pandemic. There is uncertainty, to be sure– no one knows what Brexit will bring, along with the potential of continuing intermittent lockdowns. However, there is certainty in the resilience of the industry, and where there have been challenges, there have also been massive opportunities. We have already discussed the ways in which digital content has soared, and this trend shows no sign of abating – Nielsen data shows the seventh year of consecutive double-digit growth in the UK audiobook market.

This continued growth has been responsible for some significant successes – publishing heavyweights HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster saw significant global sales increases in the last quarter, and this was due in no small part to digital sales. However, these successes are not limited to trade publishers alone –independents have been at the forefront of creative new ways of getting their books to readers.
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