HarperCollins is one of the largest book publishers worldwide and a pioneer on the digital frontier. In this issue, its top executives let you ‘Browse Inside’ the company’s success and digital evolution.

By Jim Calder

Investment in Web Technologies

Brian Murray, group president for HarperCollins Publishers, is responsible for the HarperCollins General Books Group in the U.S., which includes HarperCollins, William Morrow and Collins publishing divisions. His international responsibilities include overseeing HarperCollins Canada, Australia, New Zealand and new initiatives in China. Here, Murray reveals the key issues affecting the company and what it is doing in areas of technology development.

Browse Inside: “We see it as our own online reading platform or publishing platform. We want to be able to allow consumers anywhere on the Internet to sample [or] read a HarperCollins book. ... Some of our goals were to place Browse Inside in as many different places [as possible, including] sites like MySpace, author sites or retailer sites.”

Reaching Younger Audiences: “So if you’re searching the Internet, you really want to make sure your books can be found by people who might be interested in a particular subject.”

Partnerships: ”As part of exploring and learning about Web technologies, I think there can be circumstances where making an investment or having a partnership can be very helpful. It can help a publisher learn about a certain technology or emerging market in a very quick, cost-effective way.”

Mobile: “There is a lot of interest in all mobile space, and major media companies and publishing companies are trying to figure out if there is a market there. We’ve tried an experiment in Australia ... it went OK, but we didn’t repeat it. ... We will probably look at it again in the future, and now our UK company is also looking into putting together an experiment in Europe. The U.S. mobile market really lags behind many international markets, so we are trying to focus our experimentation in our sister companies.”

Widgets: “The widgets are kind of a relatively new term, and you see lots of widgets cropping up on the Internet for different uses. ... We wanted a widget so that it would be so easy for people to cut, copy and paste their favorite HarperCollins book onto their computer desktops or their MySpace pages. ... If you click on the widget, it launches the Browse Inside reader, and you can sample the book.

Google Book Search: “It could be a threat, but it’s also an opportunity. ... The one [part] that is potentially a threat is their publishing platform, which is how consumers view and consume content online, and depending on the kind of publisher you are, I think publishers need to decide [whether they should] be a digital publisher and control the look and the feel and the reading experience that the consumer has on the Web, or should they let a company like Google do that ...”

E-Books: “We are increasing the number of e-books that we publish every year. It’s growing, but it’s very small today. I think it has been limited by [the fact] that we don’t have an iPod for books. I don’t know if we ever will, but it’s a nice little business that is growing. ... but it’s not going to be a major part of our business for some time.”

Digitizing New Releases: “... All new titles get digitized, it’s just part of our production process now. When we edit a book, digital files get sent off to the printer, they also get sent off to the digital warehouse so they are stored ...”

When Friedman joined HarperCollins in 1997, profits were at $12 million, but jumped to $167 million by 2006.

“The jumping of the 1,000 percent is true, but there was an acquisition in there so it’s a little misleading … But we certainly have a fantastic financial picture,” she says. “And it’s not easy, I have to tell you. … Not easy at all, but certainly doable.”

Turning the company around
However, the financial picture was not always so bright for HarperCollins. Right before News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch hired Friedman, HarperCollins went through large layoffs and cancellations of book contracts.

So what contributed to this major turnaround?

“Everything,” says Friedman. “I mean the major contributors to the growth [were] every single imprint within the company and around the world. We had to look at every part of the company and … say, ‘This is what you are doing now, and this is what you can do,’” she says. “When I came here, it was clear to me that HarperCollins had a tremendous backlist that had not been explored. The people here were paralyzed, they didn’t know if they would be fired or if they could buy books or what.”

Friedman says she realized that HarperCollins had changed from what was once a strong, full-list company to a company that chased best sellers.

Today, she says, “We are back where we belong. Publishing is not only best sellers—in fact, best sellers may be the least fiscally responsible way to go. So we … [spend] a great deal of our time on the backlist. Obviously we have lots of best sellers … but the mix is what is very important, and the backlist is a significant part of it.”

Marketing the mix
Once a mix has been created, the right tools are needed to market that mix.