Profile Books
Profile Books was founded in 1996 to publish stimulating non-fiction books by the founding team, Managing Director Andrew Franklin and Editorial Director Stephen Brough. They met while Andrew was working at Penguin and Stephen was doing freelance editorial work for clients including the Economist and Microsoft. They raised capital from a number of private investors who were able to take advantage of the Government's Enterprise Investment Scheme. Both of them knew that commercial diversity would be crucial and they managed to persuade the Economist to move its book publishing from Penguin to their new start-up, which meant they had three streams of income with contract publishing and trade publishing.
As the video clip shows (which accompanies our text case study) their complementary skills, along with the discipline of having monthly board meetings and accounts, gave them a stable foundation so they were perfectly positioned to capitalise on their big winner 'Eats, Shoots and Leaves' by Lynne Truss for which they were named Small Publisher of the Year 2004. Their skill lies in being able to spot and back a successful book early and being able to pull away quickly from a failure. Profile's philosophy is that although they are a small company, through their experience and careful outsourcing, they believe they can publish more effectively and more nimbly than some of the bigger companies.
Profile Books was founded in 1996 to publish stimulating non-fiction books by the founding team, Managing Director Andrew Franklin and Editorial Director Stephen Brough. They met while Andrew was working at Penguin and Stephen was doing freelance editorial work for clients including the Economist and Microsoft. They raised capital from a number of private investors who were able to take advantage of the Government's Enterprise Investment Scheme. Both of them knew that commercial diversity would be crucial and they managed to persuade the Economist to move its book publishing from Penguin to their new start-up, which meant they had three streams of income with contract publishing and trade publishing.
As the video clip shows (which accompanies our text case study) their complementary skills, along with the discipline of having monthly board meetings and accounts, gave them a stable foundation so they were perfectly positioned to capitalise on their big winner 'Eats, Shoots and Leaves' by Lynne Truss for which they were named Small Publisher of the Year 2004. Their skill lies in being able to spot and back a successful book early and being able to pull away quickly from a failure. Profile's philosophy is that although they are a small company, through their experience and careful outsourcing, they believe they can publish more effectively and more nimbly than some of the bigger companies.
