Corner Office: Aiming for Agility

Working creatively in print is different from working creatively digitally. And … we only have a limited amount of expertise creatively on the digital side. So we've had to seek to find the right partners that can … augment the creativity in our print and translate that in some meaningful ways digitally. And then to learn from them and begin to incorporate that as part of what we do—it's a big challenge.

• Overall, what are your biggest business challenges?
Lerner: … Just that the market is not growing. It's shrinking. And so … it's a market share game. Not everyone is going to grow; especially in the school library market right now. Budgets are shrinking, and the only way we can grow is to take market share away from our competition. That's a big business challenge.

• How has the economic climate impacted your business strategy?
Lerner: Well, I think it's negatively impacted it, primarily around … the school and library funding [issue]. … That's not to say there still isn't funding out there to acquire print books. But, at best, that funding has stayed flat. And some of those funds have been shifted over to digital [content] acquisitions. So most schools and libraries are property tax-based and, obviously, we know what's happened with property valuations. So that's had a direct impact. Our [parent] company [Lerner Universal Corp.] also has book manufacturing and graphics [services]. And that's been hard-hit by the economic climate.

• What are your company's biggest growth areas?
Lerner: ... We are very confident in the quality of our books, in the purpose our books serve. And so, we think that we can continue to grow market share of our print books. We're very excited—one of our titles ["Bad News for Outlaws," by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson] just received the Coretta Scott King Book Award at [the American Library Association 2010] Midwinter [Meeting], which is unique for a publisher outside of New York or Boston to win that kind of award, outside of one of the major houses. So as a publisher, it's very gratifying to publish books that serve a social good like that. … And, at its core, that's what our job is—to publish books that are going to inspire kids.