Front list/back list

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Laura Longworth

• February 07, 2025 15:35

In the Monthly Reports section, it's great that we can now set a date to determine what counts as back list but what would be even more useful is if we can have different gradients of category. Eg Front list, 1 year back list, 2y back list, 2+y back list.

Is there any chance that you could put in filters which would enable us to get that level of reporting please?

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• Official comment

  

  Sophie Amos

  • February 20, 2025 14:58

  Hi Laura Longworth,

  Just out of interest, how do you determine your front list/ back list cut off? As this determination appears to be very publisher specific, we would have to develop this report with the ability to configure your backlist parameters.
  

  Could you provide a bit more detail on how you would want this to look and how the information would be structured? Eg if you generated a report across a time frame, would sales be grouped by title, and then broken down by the 'backlist' period (ie 1 year backlist, 2 year backlist) so that you could compare sales for a particular title across a set of years (with the figures being cumulative)? Or would the titles themselves be categorised as 1 year backlist, 2year backlist etc?

  This particular extension of our front list / backlist reporting on sales is not something that we will be able to prioritise in this current development period, and would therefore have a cost attached. Do let me know if you're still interested.

  In the meantime, I would recommend taking a look a the 'Sales Breakdown' report in Reports --> Our Reports. This might be able to give you a bit more of the detail that you're currently looking for.

  Best wishes,

  Sophie

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  Laura Longworth

  • February 20, 2025 15:17

  The front list definition we use for this report purpose is as follows: any title that has been out for 1 year (or less) by the end of the reporting period. Eg for the period 1st April 2024 - 31st December 2024, front list titles are books with a publication date from 1st January 2024 onwards.
  
  What would really be most useful is if we could have something whereby we could set the dates in boxes as follows:

  Sales period eg 01/04/2024 to 31/03/2024
  Front list pub date 01/04/2024 to 31/03/2025
  1y back list pub date01/04/2023 to 31/03/2024
  2y back list pub date01/04/2022 to 31/03/2023
  2y+ backlist pub date 01/01/1970 to 31/03/2022

  Then it might give me eg
  TOTAL for Sales period eg 01/04/2024 to 31/03/2024
  Front list £50,000
  1y back list £30,000
  2y back list £20,000
  2y+ backlist £80,000

  I don't want to know how individual titles are doing, rather on a company level. For example, I want to know what the income is which is generated in 2024/25 by all the books which are roughly 2 years old (published 01/04/2022-31/03/2023). Eg that together, the 2y old books brought in £20,000.

  The report you direct to is useful on a title level, but I'm looking more on a company level. The Monthly Reports section, with the front and back list filter, nearly gives me this, it just doesn't quite give the ability to set the parameters that we'd like. I'd love to hear what the dev. costs would be please!

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  Sophie Amos

  • August 05, 2025 11:33

  Hi Laura, 

  The team have been working on a way of allowing you to extract the information that you need here. 

  If you head into the monthly report in your system, you will see that there is now an option to choose Publication Date and Financial Year as a column header. (Note: we have adjusted how the column selection appears to clear up this area of the screen). 

  Publication year is quite simple - the calendar year in which the publication date of the product sits. 

  Financial year is slightly different, and is based on the 'end date' entered in your filters (see screenshot). Financial year in this context indicates the financial year in which the product was published. So, if your financial year ends on 31/03/2025, and a book were published on 01/03/2025, whilst the value in the publication year would say 2025, the value in the Financial Year will say 2024.

  

  Would you mind taking a look and letting me know how useful this will be for you? The team is aware of the limitations RE sorting based on publication or financial year, and are looking into it. 

  
  Many thanks, 

  Sophie

   

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