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, 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 by — 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.
