John Haynes: Manual drive

John Haynes published his first car manual when he was still at school, after his open-minded housemaster allowed him to convert an Austin 7 into an Austin 7 special: "When it came time to sell it a year later, my advert got over 150 replies and I realised that there was a real interest in the car. I had won the senior art prize three years in a row and, being a practical sort of chap, I just thought: 'Why not draw out how I had built it and try and sell that for five bob too'." John printed off 250 copies of a 48-page booklet on his school's printer. He expected the run to last him a couple of months but 10 days later he had sold out and he knew he was onto something good.

After completing his RAF service John decided to develop the idea professionally, setting up J Haynes & Company in 1960 and publishing the first bonafide Haynes manual (for Austin Healey's "Frogeye" Sprite), with a full stripdown of parts, illustrations and instructions in 1965. Success came quickly and since the publication of that first booklet Haynes has become a global brand, selling more than 150 million manuals worldwide in 15 languages.

It hasn't all been plain sailing. Turnover fell by a quarter from £36.4m in 2005 to £29.2m in 2007 as cars became more complicated and fewer people attempted their own maintenance. To counteract this fall, J Haynes (John's eldest son and managing director of the company) has worked with his father in recent years to reposition Haynes, turning the company from a one-trick pony into a vast and varied non-fiction publisher that produces books on Edwardian housekeeping and Arsenal football club alongside its car and motorcycle manuals. Results for 2009 show a return to form, with turnover up 20% from 2007 to £35.3m (the 2008 figure was £31.1m).

After taking a business degree, J followed in his father's footsteps working at Haynes US across all areas of the business, from finance and production to writing the manual for the Chevrolet MPV himself. Eager to steer clear from potential cries of nepotism, however, he worked at an investment bank in the City for several years, before returning in 2001 with an MBA from the London Business School. He explains: "We've undergone numerous developments over the past few years, and Haynes is now split into three distinctive areas: the manual programme, the licensing programme and the book publishing programme, all of which are proving extremely successful."

The extension of the manual range began when Haynes took the leap from cars to motorcycles, but now includes a range of titles offering the same style of photo-heavy, practical information on topics as varied as cricket, Apollo 11, cats and health. J says: "The driving force of our manual programme still comes from our motor titles, but we've extended the range with topics that are both practical and pragmatic. The important thing is that these titles, although different in topic to the original manuals, are complementary to them and reflect the core values of a Haynes manual: they are authentic and educational guides."

Younger audience

To introduce younger drivers to Haynes, J led the company to launch its first iPhone app, in conjunction with Gourmet Pixel, in November: "When new audiences download the app we're hoping they'll see that car maintenance isn't as complicated as they first thought. The apps will reassure a new generation that they can do it too, and hopefully this will then convert into book sales, as there is still something to be said about looking at a manual, making notes on it and spilling oil all over it. You're probably not going to want to do that with an iPhone." He adds: "We're at the first stage of looking at how we present things digitally. The iPhone app is a strategic development but it is still very early days. The initial feedback has been strong."

The Haynes brand has been stretched across various retail markets and now includes a deal with clothing retailer Next. "Our licensing manager came up with the idea of doing a Thomas the Tank Engine manual, after we had seen great success with a Thomas T-shirt. We approached Hit Entertainment and Egmont, and they agreed to a manual." Since its launch in October the Thomas manual has proven to be a success (nearly 4,000 sold through BookScan so far), so much so in fact, that J's two young daughters now know the difference between "...a saddle engine, a tank engine and a tender engine". Similarly, J approached CBS about publishing a Star Trek "Enterprise" manual in 2010, and their response was "of course, you're Haynes".

On the straight book publishing side, Haynes has also seen success with its When Football Was Football series, which came out of a partnership with the Mirror Group that gives Haynes exclusive access to the group's photo archive.

Next June, John will step down as chairman, and J will take over. With regards to the strategic changes at Haynes, John is clear: "It is all very exciting as we have such a wonderful range of books now; it's not something that I could have done. It is all J's area, if someone had said to me, 'let's publish a cats manual', my first response would have been 'but where are the pistons?'"