Given all the advances in information and communication technologies over the past decade, combined with an industry that traditionally has outsourced operations, from printing to distribution, it was only a matter of time before virtual book publishing houses came into being. "I think it's the wave of the future," said Karla Dougherty, Hilton Publishing editor-in-chief. "With the Internet and because of broadband, you can get people wherever they live."
Officeless publishing appears to be most popular in the nation's midsection, where overheads are low, but the talent pool is not as deep as on the coasts. By not requiring employees to report to a central location, publishers can recruit nationwide. At literary publisher Unbridled Books, one publisher lives in Denver, while the other lives in Columbia, Mo. The company's publicist lives in Denver; her assistant lives in Washington State; the book designer lives in Pennsylvania; the sales manager is in Nashville; and the comptroller lives in Arizona.
Hilton Publishing, which publishes health titles for the African-American market, also has a staff scattered across the country. Its publisher, Dr. Hilton Hudson, lives in Chicago. The company's v-p and CFO both live in Westchester County, N.Y., while the editor-in-chief lives in New Jersey. Its publicity/marketing manager lives in Charlotte, N.C., while the company's sales rep resides in Indiana. Most of reference publisher's Visible Ink's employees live in the metro Detroit area, although its publicist lives in New Jersey.
Executives at all three houses said decentralized publishing increases productivity and makes it easier to retain talented employees. "There's a lot more freedom and you're not bound to the commute," said Visible Ink president Roger Janecke. "So in terms of productivity you can get a lot done." Increased efficiency translates into quicker turnaround times, and with resources not tied up in high rents more money is available for promotion. "We're able to devote more of our funds to marketing and publicity and less to overhead. That's part of the process, part of the reality, of being virtual," said Fred Ramey, copublisher of Unbridled Books.
Top requirement for succeeding as a locationless company, all agreed, is good communication and hiring the right people. "We've been careful in who we've hired. You have to hire self-motivated people," Janecke said. Dougherty acknowledged that Hilton had some accountability issues at first, but those were quickly addressed. "People know they have to hold up their end, or they let everyone down," said Dougherty.
The formula has worked well at Hilton, which has seen sales triple over the last three years. Sales at Visible have increased between 5% and 15% annually.
To keep communication flowing, Hilton's employees file weekly e-mail reports, which are discussed in mandatory Friday phone meetings. In addition to phone calls and e-mails, Visible has weekly conference calls and monthly meetings at a central pub. Weekly e-mail reports are also part of the routine at Unbridled, and conference calls are held every other Tuesday.
For employees who work out of their homes, maintaining a balance between home and work can be challenging, and Unbridled copublisher Greg Michalson noted that sometimes, with a tight deadline, it would nice to be in the same office. But none of the three companies is thinking about setting up shop in a big office. Janecke said Visible didn't start out to create a virtual publishing company. "We just did it and discovered it works. People know their responsibilities and their roles and that helps."
