STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS POSTS TURNAROUND
In late 2002, after years of flowing red ink, Stanford University Press (SUP) announced that it would ambitiously overhaul both its publishing program and its operations, reducing its workforce, including editorial staff, and slashing the number of books published in some areas while starting programs in others. This week, just two short years after the overhaul begun, the plan has yielded dramatic results. Geoffrey Burn, director of the press, and Alan Harvey, director of publishing and acquisitions, last week told the Stanford Faculty Senate said that, since the 2002 reorganization, SUP revenue has grown by a whopping $1 million, up 26 percent. Making that figure even more impressive, the press’s annual subsidies during that period were trimmed from $917,000 in 2001-02 to just $221,000 in 2003-04. "Like most presses in 2001-2002, we were seeing a downturn in our fortunes as a result of reductions in both library and retail buying, reflecting a downturn in the economy as a whole," Burn told the LJ Academic Newswire. "This meant that we needed to find niche revenue streams, and launch them quickly, to underwrite our core program of scholarly publishing in the humanities and social sciences." With the trade market flat, the undergraduate market dominated by large companies, and entry into the journals market both costly and in flux, options were limited. As if those market factors weren’t daunting enough, they were compounded by SUP’s internal situation—a publishing program that was "spread fairly wide," too few books that generated enough revenue to cover the cost of other books, and "processes, systems, and schedules" that were not efficient enough to meet the increasing demands of the market. Faced with those challenges, SUP came up with an ambitious "seven part plan" to enable SUP to re-tool its program. The plan included a focus on areas where SUP had a "sustainable reputation," such as in the humanities and social sciences; also SUP abandoned areas in which it could not compete, such as science. SUP also cut back trade signings, and launched new programs in areas of strength for Stanford University such as economics, law, finance, business, and policy. The press also "re-engineered" its internal processes and managed to reduce its production schedules by about 50 percent. For now, Burn says he is comfortable with the direction of SUP and predicts even more growth. Still, he acknowledges, given the pace of technology, challenges loom for all presses, not just SUP. "At the risk of sounding complacent, I think our print model will require only fine tuning going forward," Burn said. "Our challenge, as is true for our whole community, is to play a part in finding ways to make large amounts of aggregated scholarly material available, in a readily navigable environment, with sufficient perceived value to support a business model."
Library Journal Academic News Wire: November 18, 2004
