One of the four largest Christian Book publishers in the country, Baker Publishing Group admits the word ‘publishing’ is changing rapidly and they worked hard in 2010 to catch up with digital demand.
Baker and The Digital Platform
The independent and family-owned business changed its name from Baker Book House to Baker Publishing Group when it acquired Minneapolis-based Bethany House Publishers in 2003. With the popularity of e-readers, Baker Publishing now produces new and old titles in digital format.
“If readers are moving toward electronic and non-print media, we are pleased to go with them,” says Dwight Baker, President. “We are not prejudiced as to how readers obtain the content we publish. We are not going to promote a particular choice. Our attitude is that if we publish good works, if we have good content, the readers will find it. Beyond that, we let the readers decide what medium they prefer.”
Though digital books account for only 6% of monthly sales, Baker sees the e-reader as a viable sales channel but simultaneously as a threat to print retail books. In either event, Baker is keeping both its print and digital inventories current, which has “proven to be a monumental challenge.”
Skeptical that Amazon would succeed where the first e-reader, the Rocketbook (1996) failed, Baker Publishing Group, like other publishers, scrambled to digitize its content to meet increasing demand.
“There are millions of Kindle readers and there are about seven or eight major ways to get the electronic content,” says Baker. “We had to get over 1,500 works available for these channels and each had their own separate rule books, contracts, demands on formatting. We and every publisher were scrambling. 2010 took a lot of energy. At this time a year ago, very little of our titles were available electronically. Now, most of our titles are available.”
The print platform will endure, just as it has in the face of other advancing technologies: radio, television and the Internet. And the forward thinking Baker Publishing Group will continue to offer the content readers prefer on the platform readers want, just as they have done since 1939.
Source: Business Review USA
