The Harvard Business School Press signed a three-year, exclusive publishing deal June 18 with Beijing-based Commercial Press to publish HBS Press titles in the Chinese language. The agreement kicks in July 1, and books could hit the Chinese market as early as the end of the year, said HBS Press director David Goehring. CP has the right to publish up to 150 HBS titles over the course of the deal. "We're expecting great things from this," Goehring said.
Goehring said he expects most of HBS Press's frontlist titles to be translated into Chinese. Backlist books where Chinese rights are still available—HBS Press has sold rights to a number of its titles to different publishers—are also eligible to be translated under the CP agreement. Goehring said HBS Press decided to sign an exclusive deal with CP because "they are a very prestigious press committed to bringing U.S. management practices to China." Goehring said he was also impressed with CP's intention "to leverage the Harvard name" by keeping Harvard in the name of the series.
The agreement also includes a training program that will feature an exchange of personnel between CP and HBS Press. Members of each house's editorial, production, marketing and distribution departments will spend some time at the other's offices. Details of the exchange have not yet been finalized, although Goehring said he hopes that the program "will provide us with better knowledge of the Chinese market."
The CP agreement is the second major international partnership signed by HBS Press within the year. Last fall, the press reached a copublishing deal with Random House Kodansha to publish a select number of titles in Japanese. Goehring said HBS Press is talking to other international publishers, but stressed that the CP agreement "is a very important deal."
