As publishers and booksellers gathered in Pittsburgh this week for the American Booksellers Association's Winter Institute, Edelweiss announced a new lower-cost product tier called Discovery Access.
The new tier will allow publishers to make their titles searchable within Edelweiss, visible in saved filter results, and eligible for inclusion in curated collections for booksellers, librarians, and media. It is a stripped-down alternative to the company's regular Catalog Services tier, which includes digital review copies, analytics, catalog markup, and advanced marketing features.
"A key part of Edelweiss's mission and value proposition is to make broad discovery accessible," said John Rubin, CEO of Edelweiss. "This new offering is designed to provide a clear, affordable option for title visibility, while still preserving the functionality and value that our full-service publisher partners rely on."
The announcement arrives at a crucial moment for Edelweiss, as many in the industry have recently criticized the platform for raising prices and fees following its acquisition by Valsoft in December 2024. On Monday, Ingram announced its own catalog, digital review copy, and sales solution—a potential direct competitor to Edelweiss's core business.
While some suspect the new Edelweiss service was announced as a reaction to Ingram's news, Rubin told PW that the company "has been listening closely to its customers" and the new tier has been in development for six to nine months; releasing the news at Winter Institute, he said, "made sense."
Rubin added that the service "will be available to anyone who wants it—when we say that we have 'eligibility requirements,' we want to clarify that what we're trying to do is curation to prevent AI slop becoming an issue."
He also noted that the key concern of Edelweiss is helping bookstores order from any publisher, saying, "That is the problem we are trying to solve," he said.
Rollout details will be announced in the coming months, with a product launch expected later this year.
