Company spotlight: Abrams & Chronicle Books

Abrams & Chronicle Books, a joint venture set up in the UK in 2010 by two successful US illustrated publishers—Abrams in New York (the original home of Diary of a Wimpy Kid) and Chronicle in San Francisco (publishing home of Grumpy Cat)—has just turned five. And what a five years it has been, with double-digit growth recorded in every year since the company launched. Last year it posted turnover of over £13m, up 11% on 2013.

Aware of how complicated some joint ventures can be, m.d. Doug Pocock—who joined the company two years ago and joined the board in April—says that it is fortuitous that “both companies are run by very smart people. With both publishers you have a real global sensibility and a high level of commerciality, and since both had been looking for growth outside of North America for a while in various forms, it was just a collaboration that made total sense. The books from both publishers are very complementary and so it has been successful.”

With a range of titles across all illustrated genres, be it cookery titles, high-end photography books or Ryan Gosling notebooks, Pocock says A&C’s progress is a mixture of organic sales growth and specific acquisitions. As well as distributing its own titles, it also has a boutique list of clients that it distributes for, including fellow illustrated publishers Galison, Knock Knock, Self-Made Hero and V&A. Pocock adds: “It is a small list that we’re not planning on expanding massively, because we are as invested in our clients’ businesses as we are in our owners’. We want a list coming in to complement rather than saturate. We’re not about breadth, we’re about depth.”

Pocock says that both Abrams and Chronicle are very good at tapping into the latest trends with smart publishing, something that makes it easier to focus on A&C’s bottom line. The Wes Anderson Collection by Matt Zoller Seitz and Eric Anderson has sold more than 40,000 copies; One Line a Day: A Five-Year Memory Book has sold more than 120,000 copies to date; and its Listography series has sold in excess of 200,000 copies.

“We sell beautiful books across many categories,” says Pocock. “I think it is a great time to be an illustrated publisher. We also have also a strong and robust stationery list that opens up many different doors for us.

“Success is also not just about selling the books, but how operationally slick we are. We spend a lot of time on how ‘open for business’ we are. The trade is very important to us, but our special sales team is always looking for new places to sell our books. A lot of those doors are online, perhaps working with fashion retailers, and we have just opened an account with a large homeware chain that has over 300 branches—we’re the first publisher in there. It is not like selling books to the trade, you’re selling statements, you’re selling a lifestyle. It’s a different sensibility and lots of people are trying to move into stationery, but it can be harder than it looks.”

Looking towards the next five years, Pocock wants his 18-strong team to continue its “laser focus” on Europe and grow sales in France and Germany; to increase its emphasis on the children’s market and push into Middle Grade; and to look for further acquisitions too—“as long as the fit is right”.

Asked whether he can see a time when A&C will start commissioning independently in the UK, Pocock is coy: “We work with some of the real mainstays of British culture, like the V&A, so in our future we are looking for diversification opportunities. Never say never.”