Over the last three years, the San Francisco—based Weldon Owen company has transformed itself from a $20-million book packager—known for lavishly illustrated titles for branded partners such as Williams-Sonoma and the Nature Company—to a publishing company with revenues of more than $30 million, with more than a quarter of that coming from its own publishing projects.
Last month, Weldon Owen celebrated the sale of its 15-millionth book in the Williams-Sonoma line, and is investing $3 million to support a series of books with Williams Sonoma subsidiary Pottery Barn, scheduled to launch in 2003. In May, the company published the first two books in a series with the Body Shop; there are already 300,000 copies in print worldwide. Other agreements in the works involve companies as varied as the Culinary Institute of America and 3M.
"It's a different business model," said Weldon Owen CEO John Owen and president Terry Newell. For each of its branded titles, Weldon Owen usually works with the owner or CEO of the company involved, comes up with full-color prototypes and a detailed presentation, and then finds the appropriate publishing partner in the trade to produce books at price points typically in the $15—$40 range. Weldon's publishing partners include Simon & Schuster's Atria imprint and Oxmoor House.
"It's John's philosophy that we shouldn't do a book or a series that isn't going to sell 100,000 copies," said Newell. The company achieves these numbers by selling its books to mass merchants (not just through the branded partners, but also to Borders, B&N and AMS, among others), all on a nonreturnable basis. And starting this month, Weldon Owen books will be available to more independent bookstores through a new distribution agreement with Ingram.
The company has its own publishing division called Fog City Press. A packager for 20 years, Weldon Owen owns the content for all of its books. When a book has run its course—in about five to seven years, said Newell—Fog City Press creates a new book from the old content, investing in new design and often new content, and publishes it as a new product. Examples of this synergy include Fog City's Little Cookbook series—which compiles recipes on such subjects as slow cooking and indoor grilling—and its Nature Companions. While Weldon has grown its own publishing programs "dramatically" in the past few years, Newell told PW that the company aims to keep that at about 25% of its business.
This fall, Fog City Press will produce Recipes for Entertaining, its second illustrated, hardcover compilation of the recipes from Taste magazine. "We sold 140,000 copies of the first one, The Best of Taste," noted Newell.
