Maverick Publishing Specialists, the specialist strategic consultancy and outsource services company for the publishing industry, today announced that in conjunction with Lettie Y. Conrad Consultancy, they will be launching two new specialist publisher support packages at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair. And in related news, Maverick will also be unveiling 3 new Associates who are joining the ranks of their worldwide consultancy team.
Maverick have established 5 bespoke “turn key” support services in the areas of Marketing, Market Research, Content Management and Supplier / Vendor selection that are already retained by several clients from many market sectors and regions. At the Frankfurt Book Fair, this year, Maverick will be launching two product-focused services for Publishers of all types.
The “Product Development & the Researcher Experience” package is exclusive to Maverick and is designed to assist clients with all aspects of their “user experience.” Publishers often struggle to translate an operational awareness of researcher and customer experiences into commercial success for digital products – whilst their long-term success often depends on a new approach to managing products. User-centered, evidence-based programming accelerates product innovation, and optimizes engagement and downloads. By generating an accurate view of users to translate into defined strategies, this new suite of Maverick services will provide publishers and institutions with insights into their researchers’ experiences, interpreted to inform business goals and drive impactful product decisions. Maverick experts help clients establish cutting-edge product development routines and can address improvements in metadata architecture, content management and distribution strategy, product design, business models, and more. From strategy to implementation, Maverick Product Development & Researcher Experience services are arranged around three distinct stages of build > measure > learn. This new offering includes end-to-end development, as well as design and implementation of product management processes, automated quality assurance and data governance, and establishment of resultant KPI dashboards to ensure they are best organised to compete in today’s digital marketplace.
The “Discovery to Download” service package is focused on optimizing discoverability and digital product usage. Channels of scholarly content discovery and access are plentiful, complex, and ever-changing. Many clients are concerned they may be in reactive mode when it comes to pushing their content through the networks where their readers expect to find them. Others are looking to proactively drive usage across industry sectors and address the expectations of their end users. Albeit, no one-size-fits-all, product and business objectives are often best met by facilitating a smooth, successful user journey from discovery to download. This new service package includes a variety of methods that have been proven to effectively and efficiently optimize content workflows and database development. The service elements (organized around “Insights”, “Analysis” and “Progress”) are focused on adhering to information industry standards, protecting the value of your copyright and licensing agreements, and increasing engagement and the researcher experience.
Lettie Y. Conrad recently joined Maverick as an Affiliate Associate from SAGE Publishing where she was mostly recently Executive Program Manager, Discovery & Access. She has already been with the Maverick team at the recent ALPSP conference and brings to Maverick over 15 years’ experience in scholarly publishing. An Associated Editor for Learned Publishing and serving her fifth year in NISO’s Open Discovery Initiative, Lettie’s areas of speciality include (amongst others) UX, discoverability and SEO strategy and Product strategy development. She is based in California, USA.
Also new to Maverick – and joining the 5 strong Maverick team at the Book Fair this year – is another well-known industry figure, Arend Kuester. For the last six years, Arend was Director of Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Journals / QScience (the Qatar Foundation and Bloomsbury Publishing partnership). He is now back in Germany (Berlin) and has joined to help with both Business Development and Projects. With over 25 years publishing industry expertise, Arend is an international senior executive who brings a wealth of experience in STM business strategy, sales and marketing; academic and professional journal development; as well as managing trade publishing and business relationships. He is also one of Maverick’s most experienced Open Access development specialists. Arend’s past career has also included Business Development Director at Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, and prior to that, European Director for Publishers Communication Group (PCG).
Lastly, Clare Wratten has joined Maverick as an Affiliate and is based on the South Coast of the UK. Clare is a marketing operations and PR / communications specialist and has joined the existing Maverick marketing team to help bolster the ranks of this largest (and still growing) division. Clare is an industry professional with over 18 years’ experience in marketing and communications and most recently worked at Semantico. She is currently managing the marketing and social media for several clients.
