While many university presses have embarked on a soul-searching jag as they try to reconcile their lofty mandates with low-life financial reality, the folks at Harvard Business School Press appear anything but confused. “We are not a university press,” says David Goehring, newly appointed VP and Director of HBS Press. “You could say we’re a specialty trade publisher. We are mission-driven to improve the practice of management worldwide, and that distinguishes us as a business from our competitors.” The press is itself part of HBS Publishing, a not-for-profit subsidiary of Harvard University. Rather than being funded by the parent institution, the publishing unit kicks in an annual contribution to Harvard Business School, to fund research that in turn supports development of the school’s trademark case studies — a “virtuous cycle,” as they call it.
The press publishes about 45 titles per year — only one in five authors are affiliated with Harvard Business School, and all titles are vetted via a rigorous peer-review process — but books are only one piece of the cross-platform puzzle. “Part of our core strategy is to publish across as many platforms as possible,” explains Goehring, a trade veteran who joined the press in October after 15 years with Perseus Publishing and the former Addison Wesley Longman. “We look to build franchise content.” The duo of Robert Kaplan and David Norton, for example, have published several titles with the press, including The Balanced Scorecard and the forthcoming Strategy Maps, along with numerous HBS Case Studies, which are marketed to the academic and corporate worlds. Then there are conferences and workshops, on which Harvard partners with the authors, plus Harvard’s own branded audio conferences. Don’t forget a newsletter, the Balanced Scorecard Report; an interactive program is on tap. “Even though we’re much smaller than other book publishers,” adds David Wan, CEO of HBS Publishing, “very few publishing companies bring all of these formats together and aimed at one particular area of specialty. We’re in many ways the enthusiast publication for management ideas.”
Next up is an extention of the group’s “portfolio publishing strategy,” whereby content is repurposed from one format to another, as in the “hugely successful” Harvard Business Review paperback line (46 titles strong), which compiles articles from the magazine, grouped around various themes. A similar paperback line, Harvard Business Essentials, is launching now, with two more series to come in the spring. Moreover, strategic partnerships with business players such as The Conference Board and the Society for Human Resource Management will lead to other book series, with still more partnerships on tap.
Editorial offices are based in Boston, augmented by a small New York editorial and advertising sales office. The press is distributed to the trade domestically by CDS, with international distribution in most territories by McGraw-Hill. The press has also launched a partnership with Random House Kodansha in Japan, which will publish about 15 HBSP titles in translation per year and is aimed to generate “more of a critical mass of our books using the HBS Press brand,” says Wan, himself having joined Harvard in 2002 after serving as President of Penguin Group and heading up Simon & Schuster’s K-12 program.
Part of the formula includes aggressive retail tactics. “We were one of the first companies to have a branded store at Amazon, because our brand does have weight with the consumer,” says Goehring. The HBSP website generates more than 10% of total revenues, replete with opt-in email newsletters based on a topic or product line. The company is now working with a number of retail customers to extend the brand at point-of-sale, the first fruits of which are a boutique dedicated to HBS Press at the Rockefeller Center Barnes & Noble. The company hopes to extend the program to other B&N outlets and different accounts as well.
