A strong list and more cooperation with other companies under the Harvard Business School Publishing umbrella have contributed to make nonprofit Harvard Business School Press's 20th year one of its best. "The press has been experiencing tremendous growth," said David Goehring, who was appointed v-p, director, almost exactly one year ago. "Sales were up 25% for our last fiscal year [ending June 30]." Books that did well include Clayton M. Christensen's The Innovator's Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth, written with Michael E. Raynor, which has 100,000 copies in print, as does Michael Watkins's The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels, which Goehring calls "my bible."
To sustain growth, Goehring does not plan to add more titles to HBS Press's current output of 45 titles annually. Instead, he is looking to build on two of the press's biggest assets: the HBS brand and the sheer number of platforms available through HBS Publishing, from Harvard Business Review to school cases, conferences, newsletters and eLearning. One cornerstone of Goehring's plan involves a branded merchandising initiative that began last fall at the Barnes & Noble in New York City's Rockefeller Center. Participating stores—which now include several Borders stores and large independents such as Tattered Cover and Stacey's—dedicate one or more bays in their business sections to HBS Press. These boutiques feature press signage and typically face out 30 to 60 books. "We're not trying to expand this wildly," emphasized Goehring. "We're trying to choose our partners carefully."
"We're bringing other value to the stores," adds associate publisher, director of sales and marketing Mark Bloomfield. For example, HBS Press includes its bookstore partners in its print advertising and in e-mail alerts that go to the 250,000 HBS Publishing subscribers. In addition, the press recently made Harvard Business Review's subscription list available to one of its partners for a boutique-related mailing. Later this fall, HBS Press will launch a branded speaker series, Harvard Business School Press Presents. The press will coordinate the program, which will be offered only to stores with book boutiques.
Given the press's international bent, it is also promoting its boutiques abroad. "We have a couple in the U.K.," said Bloomfield, "and Chapters/Indigo has agreed in principle to go forward in Toronto and Vancouver."
HBS Press is also continuing to add series and co-publishing ventures. This summer it launched a paperback series based on cases in the Harvard Business Review. The first three titles in the Harvard Business Review Management Dilemmaline appeared in June.To further its cross-platform merchandising, HBS Press has built a tier into its spinner racks so that stores can sell the Harvard Business Review alongside the new paperbacks. Following last winter's agreement with Gartner Inc., a research and consulting firm, to produce a series of co-branded professional books, the press has entered into one with the Society for Human Resource Management. The first three books are due in April 2005. The first book in a publishing partnership with the Conference Board will appear next September.
