Texere's Web
FROM PUBLISHING
TRENDS (SEPTEMBER 2001)
Texere
may be the Latin word meaning “to weave,” but it is
also the name of an international publisher specializing
in books on business, technology, and finance that launched
in a public-relations frenzy less than two years ago.
What happened to the company whose self-stated mission
is no less than to become “the most progressive and
authoritative voice in business publishing by cultivating,
enhancing and disseminating ideas that will inform and
illuminate the global business landscape”?
Confounding some industry observers, who wonder about
the odds for an independent publisher of high-end business
books, Texere prevails — despite what founder
Myles Thompson admits is “a tough market that
we’re all experiencing.” Created in January 2000 by
Thompson, onetime publisher of the successful finance
program at Wiley, Texere almost immediately became
a global English publisher when it bought Orion
Business Books in the UK in March. The first list of
19 titles was launched in Fall 2000, just as the economy
began its nose dive. But sales, which were in the “one
to two million dollar range,” exceeded budget. This
year another 28 are scheduled, including Hoover’s
Vision by Gary Hoover, co- founder of Bookstop
(see PT article here
and also his business Hoovers.com),
and The Agent by the poster boy for authors’
control of copyright, Arthur Klebanoff. Still,
this year will be difficult. “We’re assuming any recovery
will be a gradual one,” Thompson says, adding that “there’s
been so much over-publishing in this category.”
On the other hand, Thompson’s wife, EVP and Director
of Marketing Lee Thompson, says that the breadth
and range of their titles has helped get them through
the crash. Think pieces are fading fast, but a book
like Tom Copeland and Vladimir Antikarov’s
Real Options is doing “brilliantly,” she says.
And Thompson and company have no shortage of boosters.
Jack Covert, president of the B-to-B division of
Harry Schwartz Bookshop, calls the couple “two
of the more savvy people in this industry.” Still, he
acknowledges that “it’s hard to get traction in this
market.” Even Gary Hoover’s book, which Covert thinks
will have potential if the well-connected author gets
behind it, was to have a 75,000 first printing, but
that figure has since been downgraded to a more modest
25,000 first run.
Indeed, Texere seems to be taking a bit of its own financial
advice. Many of its services are outsourced: it is distributed
by Norton; Gail Blackhall handles its
subsidiary rights; Sally Dedecker handles marketing;
the website, catalogs, and promotion are all outsourced;
and its publicity is done by Planned Television Arts
and its parent Ruder-Finn. Finally, Texere is
partially funded — and housed in a building owned by
— Swiss Re, a multinational reinsurance company.
Another factor is that Texere does not generally compete
in auctions, and in fact, on some books like Nassim
Taleb’s Fooled By Randomness, pays no advance
at all. “We are not willing to give interest-free loans,”
says Thompson, who industry observers also describe
as perhaps a bit pompous. On the other hand, Texere
does not touch highly remunerative “buybacks,” where
the author’s company will take books for distribution
to employees or business associates. “We do no vanity
publishing,” maintains Thompson, “no matter how profitable
it may be.” That view may surprise industry players
who perceive such deals to be the bread and butter of
Texere’s business.
Looking to the future, Thompson plans to bump up the
number of branded store sites (there are now two, one
at Heathrow and the other at the Economist bookshop),
and to continue publishing translations like Absolut:
Biography of a Bottle (from Swedish). Like many
in the post-dotcom reality, alas, innovations touted
at Texere’s launch — journals, web-based applications,
video conferences, ebooks, and the like — will have
to wait for another uptick in the economy to weave their
way into reality.
©2001
Publishing Trends
