When Ted Nardin hired Phil Ruppel to replace him as head of McGraw-Hill's Trade unit in 1992, the company had been focusing on business books after deciding to leave the general trade market in the late 1980s. Over the course of the last decade, the trade operation has grown through both internal expansion and acquisitions, and Ruppel now heads a group that publishes approximately 600 nonfiction titles annually; distributes another 100 titles for its distribution clients; and has a 6,000-title backlist.
The McGraw-Hill Trade group concentrates its publishing efforts on the industry's fastest growing categories, which it has identified as business and investing; sports; health; parenting; foreign-language reference; diet, nutrition and fitness; self-help; test prep and study guides; and education. In addition to its flagship McGraw-Hill imprint, the unit's other imprints are Contemporary Books, Schaum's Outlines, International Marine and Ragged Mountain Press. The McGraw-Hill Trade moniker is used for internal purposes only: "McGraw-Hill" is what appears on titles released by Ruppel's group. "McGraw-Hill is a well-known brand worldwide," said Nardin, group v-p, professional.
Branding is a key aspect of MHT's overall publishing approach. In addition to building an identity for its imprints, MHT has a number of lines, series and authors it treats as brands, and branding even extends into the distribution area where its two major clients, the Sporting News and American Diabetes Association, are well known to the public. "People like the tried and true," explained Lynda Luppino, v-p, marketing and communications for MHT.
A watershed moment for MHT came in 2000 with the acquisition of NTC, which included the Contemporary Books imprint. "The NTC acquisition significantly broadened the subject areas we publish in," said Nardin. That diversity is reflected in the titles that have hit national and category bestsellers lists, including The Fat Flush Plan, The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell, How to Make Money in Stocks and The Rumsfeld Way.
Ruppel has divided the different categories in which MHT publishes into four broad programs: business and investing; reference/education; self-help/health/parenting; and sports and fitness.
While the business market is generally soft, Ruppel said, some segments are working, such as real estate. Flip It or Fix It is one title that Mary Glenn, executive editor, expects to do well this year. The lead spring business title, just out, is Life Matters by the coauthors of the bestseller First Things First, A. Roger Merrill and Rebecca R. Merrill. The fall lead title Career Warfare is by David D'Alessandro, author of Brand Warfare. Another potential strong seller is The Successful Investor by William O'Neil, author of How to Make Money in Stocks.
Authors who are highly credentialed or have their own platforms are also key in the self-help area. "It's like they're individual brands," said senior editor Judith McCarthy, who has high hopes for The Power of Resilience by Robert Brooks and Sam Goldstein, two well-known speakers on self-help topics. Late in 2003 a follow-up to Ann Louise Gittleman's Fat Flush Plan, The Fat Flush Fitness Plan, will be released.
The reference/ education field relies heavily on such brands as Vox, Teach Yourself and the Language Immersion Institute in the language segment and Schaum's in the test prep/study guides area. The company has an extensive foreign-language line that has reference works for every language, Ruppel said. Schaum's releases about 20 new titles a year and has a 200-title backlist. Steady sellers include Vox Compact Spanish Dictionary and McGraw-Hill's GED.
Matthew Carnicelli, executive editor for Contemporary, noted that about two-thirds of MHT's sports and fitness titles are instructional, such as Coaching Basketball and More 5 Star Basketball Drills. "We try to teach people how to do things," Carnicelli said. In keeping with MHT's branding strategy, MHT is the publisher of the official Little League books with six titles just out. Sports and fitness is also the home of the International Marine imprint, one of the world's leading boating publishers.
Another element besides branding that MHT applies throughout its list is finding books with staying power. "We are a backlist publisher," Ruppel said. While some of MHT's lead titles will have first printings of more than 100,000 copies, many have initial printings of 10,000 to 15,000. "We're not afraid to start small and let a title build," Ruppel said.
As Nardin and Ruppel made clear, MHT is not a stand-alone imprint but very much part of the huge M-H family. The school sales force sells appropriate MHT titles to the school market, while MHT's sales force sells select education titles into the trade market. The unit is also developing a new Standard & Poor's Press line that will feature works by S&P analysts written for a general audience. Some of the materials in the reference and education group, particularly from Schaum's, are being added to M-H's Primis custom publishing database. And the unit is also the publisher of BusinessWeek Guide to the Best Business Schools. S&P and BusinessWeek are divisions of M-H.
Nardin said Ruppel's group "has done quite well" the last few years, and he is looking for more growth through both internal expansion and selected acquisitions.
