What Bibliocloud does

Bibliocloud, doing business as Consonance, is a UK-based, founder-led software company that builds an integrated publishing management platform for book publishers. Founded in 2011 by Emma Barnes — who simultaneously runs the independent publisher Snowbooks (established 2003) — the company operates as General Products Ltd, is VAT-registered in England (company number 07800041), and has remained bootstrapped with no external institutional investment. Its core product, Consonance, is a non-modular, all-in-one web application that unifies bibliographic metadata management, ONIX data feeds, rights and royalties, contracts, production, project management, sales analysis, and custom reporting in a single system; all functionality is included in the standard licence, with no modules or tiered upgrades.

The platform is built on Ruby on Rails with a PostgreSQL database, hosted on Heroku (Salesforce) with AWS storage (S3 for assets, RDS for databases, SQS for enterprise integrations), and is accessed through a browser with no installation required. A public GraphQL read/write API enables customers to build bespoke dashboards, websites, and reporting tools. The product is differentiated by deep ONIX expertise (supporting ONIX 2.1–3.x and emitting feeds to 100+ recipients including Nielsen, Bowker, Amazon, OCLC, CoreSource, Hachette, JSTOR, EBSCO, and ProQuest), integrated publishing-specific workflows (to-dos linked to contractual delivery dates; royalties tied to rights deals), and compliance with GDPR, the European Accessibility Act, WCAG 2.1 AA, EUDR, and GPSR.

Commercially, Consonance charges £75 per user per month (with an 8-user minimum) for the standard licence, plus enterprise plans with private cloud/hosting and dedicated technical account management, and professional services for implementation (£2,500 for standard onboarding of an 8-user team), training (£110/hour), consultancy (£700/staff member/day), and bespoke programming (£100–150/hour). The go-to-market is consultative direct sales without a dedicated sales team or resellers, supported by content marketing (blog, weekly YouTube livestreams, documentation) and industry engagement (London Book Fair, IPG/BIC awards). The customer base spans university presses (Liverpool, Leuven, UCL, IOP), multinational academic publishers (Taylor & Francis, which replaced Klopotek with Consonance in March 2025 for 1.2 million products), trade publishers (Tate, British Library, Bedford Square, 404 Ink, Pellerin), trade bodies (IPG), non-profits (Book Dash), and partnership publishers (Higher Life). The team is 100% distributed across the UK with 1–10 employees.

Name

Bibliocloud

Legal name

General Products Ltd

Website

https://bibliocloud.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2011

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Consonance is a UK-based, bootstrapped publishing management platform that unifies bibliographic metadata, ONIX feeds, rights, royalties, contracts, and production workflows for book publishers, serving clients ranging from university presses to multinationals such as Taylor & Francis.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Publishing Management Software

NAICS

Software Publishers (5132), Software Publishers (513210)

SIC

Services-Prepackaged Software (7372), Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370)

akta.pro primary industry

Rights, ISBN & Publishing Administration Services (Identifiers, Metadata, Royalties) (MPAJAJAK)

akta.pro secondary industries

Author Business Tools & Analytics (Royalty Tracking, Pricing, Keyword/Market Research) (MPAJAJAO), Data Storytelling & Collaborative Analytics (HDAEAMAJ)

Keywords

• Publishing management software
• ONIX metadata management
• Book publishing platform
• Royalty and rights administration
• Bibliographic data feeds

Headquarters

HQ city

Thame

HQ country

United Kingdom

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Operations, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Named User Licences: Subscription-based licensing model where each named user pays a monthly fee. All features included in every licence with no modules or upgrades required. Revenue is recurring and predictable based on user count and billing cycle (monthly or annual).
2. Enterprise Plans: Private cloud and database hosting with enhanced access options, bespoke code development, and dedicated technical account management for larger clients.
3. Implementation Services: One-off data migration and implementation services including ONIX import, feed setup, and training sessions.
4. Training Services: Additional personalized training sessions beyond standard implementation. Mandatory training charge for royalties projects.
5. Consultancy: Advanced data migration and custom consultancy services at daily rates.
6. Bespoke Programming: Personalized code changes beyond the standard licence. Most beneficial changes delivered as part of licence fee if useful to all users.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Bibliocloud (commercially: Consonance) sells a unified, web-based publishing enterprise management platform for book publishers that consolidates bibliographic metadata, ONIX data feeds to 100+ trade recipients, project management, contracts, rights and royalties, production, sales analysis, and custom reporting into a single non-modular system. It also exposes a public read/write GraphQL API enabling customers to build bespoke dashboards, websites, and integrations on top of their own publishing data.

Product overview

Consonance is a unified publishing enterprise management platform for book publishers. It provides a single integrated system encompassing ONIX and metadata management, rights and permissions, contracts and royalties, production management, project management (to-dos, discussions, calendars), sales analysis, and custom reporting. All features are included in the standard license without modular pricing. The platform is accessible via a web browser with no software installation required, and offers a GraphQL API for custom integrations and external reporting tools. The system is built and supported by General Products Ltd, a company operated by publishers for publishers.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Snowbooks: An independent publishing house founded in 2003, operating as a separate venture alongside the Consonance software business.

Products and services

• Consonance Publishing Management Platform Web-based publishing enterprise management system for book publishers providing bibliographic data management, ONIX metadata feeds, rights and permissions, contracts and royalties, production management, sales analysis, and project management in a unified, non-modular platform. All features (project management, production, contracts, rights, royalties, contacts, P&Ls, catalogues) are included in the standard per-user licence with no modular upsells.
• Consonance GraphQL API Public read and write GraphQL API enabling developers to build bespoke dashboards, websites, reports, marketing materials, and forms directly from live Consonance data; documented separately and referenceable as a standalone capability for customer-side integration projects.

Quantifiable outcome

• Managed 1.3 million products across all clients in 2024
• +3 more outcomes

Named customers13 records

Segments7 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration3 records

AI capability1 record

Feature8 records

Partnerships

Seven partnerships are on record, tiered core infrastructure, core, flagship enterprise and standards.

• AWS (Amazon Web Services)core infrastructureTechnology or IntegrationAWS S3 for asset storage (99.999999999% durability), AWS RDS for PostgreSQL databases. SQS (Simple Queue Service) used for enterprise client integrations like Taylor & Francis.
• Heroku (Salesforce)core infrastructureTechnology or IntegrationPlatform as a Service provider hosting the Consonance application. Provides enterprise-grade security, continuous protection for databases, and scalable cloud platform.
• SnowbookscoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerConsonance's parent company and sister publisher. Run by CEO Emma Barnes since 2003. Independent publisher providing real-world publishing experience that informs product development. Snowbooks employees have worked with Consonance team on publishing workflows.
• Taylor & Francisflagship enterpriseTechnology or IntegrationEnterprise client managing 1.2 million products. Custom bi-directional integration via AWS SQS between Taylor & Francis product hub and dedicated Consonance instance. As of March 2025, completely replaced legacy Klopotek ONIX delivery.
• Liverpool University PresscoreTechnology or IntegrationPartnership since 2015. Supports Liverpool Distribution Services mechanism, receiving live ONIX feeds from University of Michigan Press, cleaning data for UK market. Partners include University of Georgia Press, University of Michigan Press, The Littman Library, Voltaire Foundation, Historic England.
• EDiTEUR (ONIX Standards Body)standardsTechnology or IntegrationStandards organization behind the ONIX standard for book trade metadata. Consonance implements ONIX standards and contributes to industry data standardization.
• BIC (Book Industry Communication)standardsTechnology or IntegrationUK book industry standards body. Consonance supports BIC standards including Thema subject codes, BISAC, and industry classification systems.

Scale indicators14 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• MetaComet Systems: MetaComet provides royalty management and publishing operations software (Royalty Tracker, MetaComet MIS) used by trade and academic publishers. It overlaps with Consonance on royalty calculation, contract management and rights administration.
• Firebrand Technologies: Firebrand offers title management, ONIX distribution and metadata services to US-based trade and academic publishers. It addresses the same publisher pain points (metadata, ONIX feeds, distribution) and is a direct competitor in the English-language publishing MIS space.
• Klopotek: Klopotek is a leading publishing management software vendor for academic and trade publishers. It is a direct competitor — Taylor & Francis migrated off Klopotek to Consonance in March 2025 — and competes head-to-head on ONIX, rights, royalties and production workflows.
• Virtusales Publishing Solutions (Bookmaster): Virtusales provides Bookmaster, an enterprise publishing MIS used by trade, academic and educational publishers for title management, royalties, and metadata distribution. It competes with Consonance in the same UK/European publishing mid-market.
• EDS (Essential Data Solutions): EDS provides royalty management and publishing finance software to book and journal publishers. It directly overlaps with Consonance's royalty, contract and rights modules, particularly for academic and professional publishers.

Others

• Nielsen BookData: Nielsen BookData is a major bibliographic data aggregator and ONIX recipient. Rather than competing with Consonance on software, it is a downstream recipient of the ONIX feeds Consonance generates on behalf of publishers, making it a critical ecosystem participant.
• OCLC (WorldCat): OCLC operates WorldCat and library metadata services and is one of the 100+ ONIX recipients that Consonance feeds. It is an ecosystem participant rather than a direct competitor, but reflects the breadth of Consonance's distribution network.
• Bowker: Bowker is the US ISBN agency and a major ONIX recipient/metadata services provider. Like Nielsen, it sits downstream of Consonance's ONIX feeds but is also an ecosystem participant through identifier services and Bookwire distribution.

Broad incumbents

• Knobias / Lightning Source (Ingram): Ingram Content Group operates Knobias (title management and metadata) and Lightning Source (print-on-demand) as part of a broader distribution and publishing services platform. It is a broad incumbent that overlaps with Consonance on metadata management and ONIX distribution for large publishers.

Emerging players

• Pubforce / PubFactory: Pubforce (formerly associated with PubFactory / Atypon) provides publishing operations and metadata platforms for academic publishers. It is an emerging player with partial overlap to Consonance's ONIX and metadata management capabilities.

Market position

Strengths1 record

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat6 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• GitHubgithub.com/GeneralProducts
• YouTubeyoutube.com/@consonance_app
• Xx.com/bibliocloud

Compliance5 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Subsidiaries1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Bibliocloud