Recently, I was introduced to getAbstract, the world’s largest provider of business book summaries – not through my line of work, surprisingly, but at a wedding – by a family friend who uses getAbstract’s service in her organizational management position at General Motors.

How had I not heard of this service, used to inform book-purchasing decisions not only for thousands of individuals, but for corporate libraries and corporate training programs? getAbstract’s clients include 20% of the Fortune 500 companies.

As I would learn from Arnhild Walz-Rasilier, Vice President of the Lucerne, Switzerland-based company, who was kind enough to answer my questions about getAbstract via email, getAbstract chooses which of the 11,000 business books published each year they will summarize for their global customers by considering the offerings in catalogs received directly from publishers and by monitoring business media coverage of books.

Nevertheless, I had to know more about this influential company and what it does. I spoke with Ms. Walz-Rasilier:

Q: Who are your subscribers? 

A: Present and future decision makers in business. People committed to lifelong learning with an interest in business and/or ambition to climb the professional career ladder.

Q: What do they seek from getAbstract?

A: Carefully selected books across the entire publishing arena that fit their fields of interest, as well as outstanding releases that help answer their questions and provide new insights for their professional development.

Q: How do getAbstract’s summaries go beyond what you can learn from a book jacket or description on Amazon.com?

A: Every abstract contains a review, an overview of the book’s content and a few selected “key quotes” (less than 300 words in total). Armed with that information, readers can make truly informed purchasing decisions. Executives, managers and business professionals rely on and trust our recommendations, which makes getAbstract the leader in precision book marketing.

getAbstract provides an objective and independent presentation of top titles with an unbiased professional opinion.

Q: How do you decide which books to include in your summary listings?

A: Our professional editors screen 11,000 new business titles annually and pick the best in leadership, strategy, management, marketing, human resources, finance, international business, economics, politics, technology and career development. The editors select extraordinary titles, as determined by their assessments of each book’s relevance, applicability, degree of innovation and style.

Q: What are your sources of information about books coming down the publishing pipeline?

A: getAbstract appreciates long-standing relationships with more than 450 international publisher partners, which regularly provide their catalogs and newsletters announcing new releases. We carefully watch publishers’ costs, and we thus ask them not to submit any hard copies before our editorial team has made sure that the work in question has potential to meet our strict selection criteria. Following that assessment, getAbstract selects the titles we would like to evaluate. We also carefully follow business publications for books worth promoting.

On top of this routine, we receive unsolicited books sent by authors and publishers on a daily basis.  Also, more and more authors and publishers contact us directly, asking how to get their works promoted in the getAbstract library.

Q: Do you accept these unsolicited submissions from authors and publishers?  From marketers/publicists?

A: We send these books through our usual assessment process. From time to time, we come across a title which makes it to our final selection. However, the majority of these books don’t meet our selection criteria.

Q: Do you rate and evaluate books, or simply summarize them?

A: Yes, we evaluate and rate by innovation, applicability and style.  We invite you to visit our website www.getAbstract.com to check on each and every recommended book. You will find close to 8,000 abstracts in our library.

Q: Will getAbstract review eBooks or self-published titles?

A: In general, yes.

Q: Who writes the summaries for getAbstract?

A: Our editorial capacity is built on a network of more than 120 high-level business journalists and business editors in the US, Europe and Asia. We create book recommendations in English, German, Spanish, Russian and Chinese.

This interview will also be posted on getAbstract’s blog.