Littlejohn and Ehaus partner to provide publishers with a complete business and information management solution

In a move that is likely to be of interest to many smaller to medium sized publishers, Littlejohn LLP, the firm of chartered accountants behind the AVATAR publishing management system, and Ehaus, the leading supplier of web services to the book trade, are working together to integrate Ehaus’s new Epic publishing information management product with AVATAR.

Epic (Electronic Publishing Information Centre) is a purpose built web based application that enables book publishers, distributors or marketing agents to store and edit information relating to their products in a central repository and then output this in the appropriate formats, including ONIX, for bibliographic agents, retailers, distributors and to their own websites and for other marketing purposes. The application is easy to learn and use but offers plenty of useful features, such as media file uploading and management, contact address management, title grouping and bulk importing.

Ehaus Managing Director Matthew Pollock comments: “The efficiency of the entire publishing operation is dependent upon accurate and comprehensive product meta-data and the ease with which this can be originated and updated. Our development of Ehaus Epic has grown naturally out of our discussions with existing clients and our inbuilt understanding of the publishing and bookselling supply chain both on and offline. The AVATAR team shares our core mission – to provide software that delivers timely, accurate and complete information for the publishing industry – and it’s great for us to be able to add value to AVATAR’s existing financial management based system.”

Ian Singer, the IT partner at Littlejohn LLP responsible for AVATAR said: “Publishers need to run their businesses as efficiently as possible and utilise cost effective systems that deliver real value, particularly in the current economic climate. They also need to be supported by reliable suppliers so that they can focus more on their revenue generating activities and less on administrative processes. AVATAR’s qualities as a publishing-specific business management system have been recognised by an increasing number of publishers over the last couple of years. To complement AVATAR’s acknowledged financial reporting and business intelligence strengths, we are keen to make sure we offer the latest ONIX compliant based title management capability as an integrated part of the AVATAR system and our partnership with Ehaus achieves this.”

- ends -

For further information, please contact:

Matthew Pollock Ehaus Limited 020 3393 8290 matthew.pollock@ehaus.co.uk

Michael Collins AVATAR 07779 602 865 mcollins@littlejohnllp.com

Notes to editors

About Ehaus (www.ehaus.co.uk)
Ehaus has been developing software and designing web sites for 10 years. The company specializes in building fully branded e-commerce enabled catalogue web sites, integrating accurate data from existing sources, and providing tools to update and manage web content.

As the web software arm of Book Data (later Nielsen BookData) it began as a specialist supplier to the book trade and, following a management buyout in 2004, Ehaus has continued to build an impressive client portfolio including Foyles, Little Brown, OECD (The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), Oxfam, BDS (Bibliographic Data Services), Insight Guides, Carlton Books and Pluto Press.

About AVATAR (www.avatar-software.com)
AVATAR is a complete business management system for book and journal publishers, book packagers and distributors. Functionally rich, AVATAR’s modules are seamlessly integrated yet flexible enough to meet publishers’ individual business needs.

AVATAR is also able to integrate seamlessly with existing systems, and protects investment through the use of industry standards like Oracle database compatibility. Partnerships with leading technology providers such as IBM, ensure a ‘best of breed’ approach to all aspects of the software’s design. The system has been used by publishers for more than 10 years and is constantly being refined and enhanced. Clients include Pen and Sword Books, Merlin Unwin Books, Quercus Publishing, Reed Business Information, Kingsway Communications and Summertown Publishing.

AVATAR is supported by Littlejohn LLP, one of the UK’s top 30 firms of chartered accountants.

About Littlejohn LLP (www.littlejohnllp.com)
Littlejohn LLP is an independent Top 30 UK firm of chartered accountants and business advisors based in London’s Canary Wharf. It is an independent member of Polaris International, a worldwide association of accounting firms.