HCP: 25 Uncommon Years

Judith Rosen |

Dec 13, 1999

News
HCP: 25 Uncommon Years Judith Rosen -- 12/13/99 There's nothing common about Harvard Common Press, a small publisher in Boston's South End, now in its 25th year. Bruce Shaw, who acquired a majority interest in the company in 1981 and bought out his partners in 1987, told PW sales have grown by 50% or more for three of the last four years, with the fourth year's increases reaching nearly 100%. Not bad for an eight-book-a-year house with eight employees. Harvard Common has done especially well with parenting and child-care books such as last April's Smart Love by Martha Heineman Pieper and William J. Pieper, which has sold 30,000 copies in hardcover. Its all-time bestseller continues to be The Nursing Mother's Companion by Kathleen Huggins, which was revised last spring and has sold more than 500,000 copies since it first came out in 1985. Other books that have contributed to the press's growth include its popular Best Places to Stay travel series, which was licensed to Houghton Mifflin 10 years ago, and its only foray into fiction, Rachel Ingalls's Mrs. Caliban. In 1985, when Ingalls's tale of a bored housewife and the 6-ft.-7-in. monster Larry was named one of the 20 great American postwar novels by the British Book Marketing Council, sales jumped. Instead of remaindering the book, Shaw ended up reprinting and optioning the book's film rights. HCP got its start with an assist from Walker president and publisher George Gibson, then head of marketing at David Godine, where Shaw also worked. Gibson recommended a manuscript by chef James Haller from the Blue Strawberry restaurant in nearby Portsmouth, N.H., for HCP's first list. The Blue Strawberry Cookbook is still in print and has sold 50,000 copies since 1975. Cooking continues to be one of HCP's strong categories. Bon Appetit columnist Brooke Dojny's October release, The New England Cookbook, sold 21,000 copies in its first month, and Judith M. Fertig's June release, Prairie Home Cooking, currently has more than 54,000 copies in print. Cheryl Alters Jamison and Bill Jamison's James Beard Cookbook Award-winners, Smoke & Spice and The Border Cookbook, have combined sales of more than 310,000 copies. Vegetarian cooking on and off the grill is also a popular niche; Didi Emmons's Vegetarian Planet has sold more than 200,000 copies. The press also specializes in birthing books. To keep up with the growth, Shaw plans to double the company's physical space early next year. He also plans to double the size of the list, adding titles in health and the psychology of parenting. Special sales account for close to 60% of HCP's total revenues. Sales through the bookstore channel are handled by NBN. At this point, the press's Web presence is just starting to be felt. Like the soon-to-be-completed office space, Shaw refers to www.harvardcommonpress.com as "a work in progress."

News

HCP: 25 Uncommon Years
Judith Rosen -- 12/13/99

There's nothing common about Harvard Common Press, a small publisher in Boston's South End, now in its 25th year. Bruce Shaw, who acquired a majority interest in the company in 1981 and bought out his partners in 1987, told PW sales have grown by 50% or more for three of the last four years, with the fourth year's increases reaching nearly 100%. Not bad for an eight-book-a-year house with eight employees.

Harvard Common has done especially well with parenting and child-care books such as last April's Smart Love by Martha Heineman Pieper and William J. Pieper, which has sold 30,000 copies in hardcover. Its all-time bestseller continues to be The Nursing Mother's Companion by Kathleen Huggins, which was revised last spring and has sold more than 500,000 copies since it first came out in 1985.

Other books that have contributed to the press's growth include its popular Best Places to Stay travel series, which was licensed to Houghton Mifflin 10 years ago, and its only foray into fiction, Rachel Ingalls's Mrs. Caliban. In 1985, when Ingalls's tale of a bored housewife and the 6-ft.-7-in. monster Larry was named one of the 20 great American postwar novels by the British Book Marketing Council, sales jumped. Instead of remaindering the book, Shaw ended up reprinting and optioning the book's film rights.

HCP got its start with an assist from Walker president and publisher George Gibson, then head of marketing at David Godine, where Shaw also worked. Gibson recommended a manuscript by chef James Haller from the Blue Strawberry restaurant in nearby Portsmouth, N.H., for HCP's first list. The Blue Strawberry Cookbook is still in print and has sold 50,000 copies since 1975.

Cooking continues to be one of HCP's strong categories. Bon Appetit columnist Brooke Dojny's October release, The New England Cookbook, sold 21,000 copies in its first month, and Judith M. Fertig's June release, Prairie Home Cooking, currently has more than 54,000 copies in print. Cheryl Alters Jamison and Bill Jamison's James Beard Cookbook Award-winners, Smoke & Spice and The Border Cookbook, have combined sales of more than 310,000 copies. Vegetarian cooking on and off the grill is also a popular niche; Didi Emmons's Vegetarian Planet has sold more than 200,000 copies. The press also specializes in birthing books.

To keep up with the growth, Shaw plans to double the company's physical space early next year. He also plans to double the size of the list, adding titles in health and the psychology of parenting.

Special sales account for close to 60% of HCP's total revenues. Sales through the bookstore channel are handled by NBN. At this point, the press's Web presence is just starting to be felt. Like the soon-to-be-completed office space, Shaw refers to www.harvardcommonpress.com as "a work in progress."

A version of this article appeared in the 12/13/1999 issue of Publishers Weekly under the headline: