It was a regular Friday morning meeting at PageMajik. As Billy Joel correctly predicted decades ago, the regular crowd shuffled in. Before we all sat down and got comfortable, someone popped a question.

“If you were to describe a publishing process in just one word, how would you say it?” We stared at him. “Go on, what would that magic word be?”

“Whose publishing process?” someone else shot back.

“It could be a client’s publishing cycle. Or it could be your definition of what a good publishing process should be.”

We began in a clockwise order. “Simple.” “Easy.” “Convenient?” “Efficient.” “Quick.”

“But shouldn’t a publishing process be all of these?”

“What about smart?”

“Sure, but that’s more technology-oriented, don’t you think?”

“Profitable?”

“That covers the business angle, but what else?”

“Classy?”

“That is descriptive of the end-product…”

“Stress-free?”

“I like it. It is customer focused…”

“How about ‘friendly’?”

“Hmm…”

“Or secure?”

“Isn’t that just one aspect of what one would want a publishing process to be?”

“Also, aren’t some these words interconnected? For instance, your publishing can be friendly only if it’s simple and stress-free…”

“Likewise, it can be efficient only if it’s both convenient and quick.”

“Agreed, so where are we with our magic word?”

“From PageMajik’s perspective, I would say complete.”

“Why would you say that?”

“Take a look at the publishing processes used by most small and mid-sized publishers. They have to outsource many of their intermediate steps.”

“Another thing to remember is that they don’t have the bandwidth for say, pre-contract validation or gauging user experience. PageMajik can help them with not just these, but also with contract management, audience assessment, market assessment, proposal reviews…”

“In that case, what the one word you’d associate it with?”

“Complete, I would say…”

“How about ‘end-to-end’?”

“That’s quite ‘comprehensive’, too…”

“Sure, our tool suite ensures that the publishing process is complete, but what does it mean to the publisher?”

“Since it brings all the bits n pieces of the process under one umbrella, it offers him something very important.”

“Which is…?”

“Control.”

“He’s now well and truly in charge of his publishing. With PageMajik, all the pieces fall into place and the publisher is in complete control.”

“You mean the publishing is complete and the publisher is in control.”

“Have it your way.”

“But you just can’t talk about end-to-end publishing or how it offers control to the publisher. You’ll have to show how PageMajik makes it possible.”

“Absolutely. We have the perfect platform for this at the Frankfurt Book Fair.”

“Great, we’re going to be at Hall 4.2, Stand M86. And we’ll be looking forward to take them through a quick demo of how PageMajik makes their publishing complete.”

As a publisher, how would you describe your publishing process?

And if you were to do that in a word, how would you say it?

Visit us at the PageMajik stall and share your views on this. Remember, we’re at Hall 4.2, Stand M86.