From 1997 to 2000, Harry Potter was published every year, and the last three books were also published in 2003, 2005 and 2007. It has created more than 300 million copies of sales worldwide, which is an unprecedented miracle. At the same time, Harry Potter has created many precedents in children's book publishing. For example, the publishing house set up a cover design studio for children's books for the first time, and launched simultaneous sales around the world, from midnight to adult readers. Such an omni-directional, large-scale and innovative marketing activity is like a general mobilization of marketing, and the effect is spectacular.
Before Harry Potter, publishers of children's books always gave the book covers to design companies. Starting with Harry Potter, broomes Berry set up a studio to design covers for children's books. In addition, for the first time, the publishing house provides accurate sales data for the relevant industrial chains through the inventory reporting system and the sales figures tracked by book sales, which is convenient for accurately evaluating the purchase volume and replenishment volume, which also opens the prelude for children's books to enter the bestseller era.
The global simultaneous publication of Harry Potter also confirms the strength of the publishing house in operating global bestsellers. The most symbolic thing is that at midnight on July 16, 2005, Rowling held a grand release conference of Harry Potter in Edinburgh Castle where she wrote it. She read this passage here, and the publishing house also invited 70 representatives of "fans" from six countries selected through competition to arrive at Edinburgh Castle by carriage to attend a luxurious dinner at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. For the book industry, books are sold at midnight, which makes the supermarkets that seize the retail share of books with high discounts lose the opportunity.
Harry Potter is also the most successful example of pushing children's books to the adult market. This point, in addition to the role played by the government's reading promotion activities, broomes Berry also actively promoted and guided adults through World Book Day and advertisements, which also invisibly expanded the consumer market of this set of books. In 2007, the first audio version was released at the same time as Ha Qi. In addition, the publishing house has also developed various forms such as adult edition, deluxe edition and suit. The film adapted from Harry Potter also won more attention for this set of books, which in turn promoted the sales of books.
In 20 12, J.K. Rowling signed a contract with Little Brown Publishing House to publish her first adult book. The signing of Rowling's contract with Little Brown Press also means the end of her long-term cooperative relationship with bloomsbury publishing plc in London, at least in the issue of new books. Bloomsbury Publishing Company is the publisher of Harry Potter novels.
Broomes Berry also issued a statement on Rowling's departure. He said: "We are very proud to be a long-term publisher of Rowling's books ... our relationship with Rowling will be closer than ever." At the same time, broomes Berry announced that it will publish Harry from 20 13. Porter series illustrated edition.
2. Post-Harry Potter strategy-actively preparing for the challenge.
Through the Harry Potter series, broomes Berry Publishing Company has achieved great success, but the business miracle created by Harry Potter will also come to an end, and broomes Berry will also face more challenges. The publishing house has taken a series of measures to seek new development.
1) Develop new business.
In the past few years, on the one hand, the company has created brilliant achievements, on the other hand, it is constantly exploring new publishing business. It has reduced its investment in children's books market and focused on fictional new books and adult nonfiction books, and achieved success. For example, khaled hosseini's The Kite Runner and A Wonderful Sun were published in Broomsbury in 2006 and 2007, and more than 4 million copies have been sold since their publication. Brilliant Thousand Sunnies was the best-selling book in Britain in the first half of 2008. In addition, the company also invested 30 million pounds to publish 1000 new books, but broomes Berry also admitted that the investment did not get the expected return from the market reaction in the autumn of 2006.
Broomes has also merged some other types of publishing institutions. In 2000, it acquired a&; C black publishing company. The company mainly publishes non-fiction books and reference books, and also dabbles in the children's books and educational books market. In 2008, broomes Berry bought a professional publishing house named featherstone. Feather Stone Publishing House mainly publishes educational books for children over 7 years old. In addition, broomes "also merged some natural science professional publishing houses. This has accumulated a large number of reprinted book resources for the company.
In July 2009, bloomsbury publishing plc acquired Tottel Publishing, an independent publisher in the field of professional publishing, for 9.96 million pounds in cash, aiming at expanding its scale in the field of academic and professional publishing and launching a new round of offensive. The acquisition is only part of a series of recent acquisitions by broomes Burry Publishing Company. Previously, bloomsbury publishing plc also acquired Methuen &; Co., Ltd.), Berg Publishing House and Arden Shakespeare Company cooperated and established Bloom Academic Company, aiming at expanding the non-public book publishing business by using part of the proceeds from the Harry Potter books. In September 2008, bloomsbury publishing plc acquired Oxford International Press for 3 million pounds.
2) Carry out mergers and acquisitions and geographical expansion, and develop simultaneously in the three markets of Britain, America and Germany.
In recent years, broomes Berry has resisted the threat of group mergers and acquisitions, and has always maintained the posture of an independent publishing house. In Britain, broomes Berry paid a high price for the author's copyright, and at the same time vigorously expanded the global market, that is, adopted the strategy of making bestsellers and selling them to multiple markets (including Berlin and new york) to reduce the risk. Looking for a good book first, buying German copyright first, and letting the book enter the Anglo-American and German markets at the same time, broomes Berry seized the opportunity, formed his own advantages, and gained development opportunities under the situation of large publishing groups.
In 2003, broomes Berry entered the German market through the acquisition of Berlin Press. In Germany, broomes Berry translated the best-selling books in Britain and North America into German and published some English books for the German market with the help of Berlin Publishing Branch's knowledge of the market. The book Ha 7 alone sold 654.38+0 million copies in Germany. In the first half of 2007, with the help of several bestsellers such as The Kite Runner, the revenue of the Berlin branch of Bloom Berry increased by 36% to 3.42 million pounds. In the German market, the relevant laws prohibit book discounts, which ensures the existence of a strong independent bookstore market, and also provides a long sales cycle for hardcover books and protects retail prices. The Berlin branch is also looking for books that can be exported in Germany.
1998 broomes berry set up a branch in the United States, and in 2004, he acquired Walker Publishing Company of new york to win the channel of expansion to the United States. Walker Publishing Company, an independent American publisher, was founded by Sam Walker on 1959. Before it was acquired, it was still a family business, featuring adult non-fiction books, mystery novels and children's books.
Newton, the founder of broomes Bury, said: "We will continue the strategy of publishing English books in the three major markets of Germany, the United States and the United Kingdom at the same time, so as to avoid the price pressure of bookstores in downtown Britain and expand the global influence of books." Although the British publishing industry and big publishing houses are under the control of media groups and become the main force, Newton still tries to maintain Bloomsbury's independent identity. Through these overseas mergers and acquisitions, broomes Berry's business continues to expand, but 56% of its business still comes from Britain, and 85% of its sales come from British companies. The sales share of German and American companies is 5% and 10% respectively.
3) Other industries
Broomes Berry also set foot in the audio publishing market, hoping to buy some film and television copyrights and bring more income for itself with the help of intellectual property rights.
At the same time, broomes Berry also took a step to attack the financial field. In September 2007, it announced the establishment of a long-term cooperative relationship with Qatar Financial Center, and plans to launch Qatar Financial Services Platform in autumn 2009. Supported by a database of 6.5438+0.5 million words, the platform provides an online platform for global financial scholars, professionals and students to meet the needs of business and financial information. While providing online services, there will be a series of authoritative books as support.
4) Electronic publishing
As early as 1999, broomes Berry Company cooperated with Microsoft Group and invested in the paper version and electronic version of Microsoft Electronic Encyclopedia World English Dictionary. In the same year, the company participated in the English teaching database business of McMillan. 200 1 broomes Berry cooperated with The Economist to establish an online business reference service system.
In 2006, some books in Bloomsbury were downloaded electronically. The person in charge of the company predicts that 50% of fictional book sales will be realized by electronic download in the future, and plans to achieve this goal within 10 years.
In April 2007, broomes Berry cooperated with LibreDigital to launch the Look Inside project on its website to digitize some books. In addition, broomes Berry also plans to set up an interactive community website.