Last year, Simon & Schuster posted a 2% revenue increase, to an estimated $770 million—due in part to a strategic plan developed by the publisher late in 2004, a year in which sales rose about 9%. S&S CEO Jack Romanos acknowledged that while many grandiose big-picture plans never survive in the real world (including a few from S&S), the '04 initiative resulted in some concrete actions.
In addition to examining "what kind of publisher and what kind of corporate culture we wanted to have," the '04 offsite review looked at the strengths and weaknesses of S&S's publishing programs, Romanos said in an exclusive interview. The meetings identified some publishing gaps at the company, which led to the formation of Atria's forthcoming Latino program, Atria Books Espanol; the launch of Mary Matalin's conservative Threshold Editions imprint; the creation of a new coloring and activity unit in the children's division; and this month's purchase of the Christian book publisher Howard Publishing. "Everyone had their marching orders to implement different pieces of the plan," Romanos said.
The strategic review also determined what many inside and outside of S&S already knew—its commercial fiction needed a boost to match the success of nonfiction. To that end, the company upped its marketing efforts for authors Jodi Picoult, Vince Flynn, Jennifer Weiner, Greg Iles, Lauren Weisberger and Philippa Gregory. S&S is putting similar concentrated efforts behind another six authors in 2006.
No strategic plan would be complete without looking at the impact of technology on publishing, and although Romanos said S&S is still figuring out what role digital publishing will play in the future, the company has developed some basic outlines. Google, Amazon and other tech companies "will make ideal distribution partners," Romanos said, adding that he views digital publishing "as another format... with a real upside." He said that while S&S may develop its own digital distribution capability, there is no reason that operation can't exist with delivery systems developed by other companies. "You're always going to need a middleman for people who don't know what they want to buy," Romanos explained. "The same way you need bookstores in the physical world, you'll need something similar in the digital space to connect to consumers."
While sales of content via the Web is still in the future, promoting books online is very much part of S&S's present. "We've become much smarter about how to market online," Romanos said. The company has redirected significant funds from such traditional promotional activities as posters, brochures, catalogues and print ads in favor of e-mail promotions, and the company will continue to invest more in online marketing, Romanos said.
One part of the strategic plan called for S&S to develop more titles for readers 18—34 (Simon Spotlight Entertainment, for example). But to achieve that, S&S realized it had to attract and keep young talent. "We knew that too many younger people were moving on to jobs within and outside the industry," Romanos said. To stanch the outflow of employees, S&S has developed a mentoring program, new personnel reviews to better align the career goals of employees with opportunities at the company.
On the sales side, the review prompted S&S to look at retailers in different ways. "We knew we had to find more outlets beyond bookstores," Romanos said. While seeking alternative outlets is not a new trend, S&S has put the search for different outlets into high gear over the past two years. Home Depot, Restoration Hardware and dollar stores are all good accounts now for certain titles.
The search for new outlets, as well as for a way to better utilize backlist, has led to big gains in S&S's Customer Driven Publishing business. The unit repurposes books in a variety of ways—bindups, reprints of out-of-print titles—for particular retailers. "If it makes sense, we'll do it," Romanos said. That could be the slogan for a refurbished S&S.
