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Profile Books goes from strength to strength
Rebecca Gray, managing director at Profile Books, talks about the independent publisher’s recent achievements, her experience running the business and her outlook for the company’s future.
It has been one year and three months since Rebecca Gray took on the role of managing director at Profile Books, and “it’s been a lot”. The independent publisher has seen turnover soar 27% since last year, at £23.5m for the 2023 to 2024 financial year and with operating profit at £4m. A few titles have contributed to this outstanding performance, but nothing comes close to the success of G T Karber’s Murdle (Souvenir Press), a two-time winner at The British Book Awards in 2024.
Gray is optimistic for the year ahead. New books by Karber are on the horizon, but the m.d. is aware of publishing’s tendency to “kill the golden goose” following the overwhelming success of a series like Murdle, which has sold half a million copies (TCM) to date. The Profile team “certainly aren’t embarking on a load of Murdle-alikes” and, for Gray, the “pleasure of publishing is in the breadth”. As well as looking to the future, the m.d. is also aware of Profile Books’ history, and how the company came to be a “jewel in the crown of independent publishing”. Founder and owner Andrew Franklin has taken a step back in running Profile with Gray at the helm, but he is still involved in the business. “We need his involvement,” the m.d. tells me, explaining that Franklin will continue to be on the board after he retires in 2026.
Stepping up to the role of m.d. has involved “lots of learning” for Gray, who was previously non-fiction publisher at Profile. She has also faced various challenges, with costs remaining high, although she says that these peaked around 18 months ago and have “slightly softened” since, adding that “it’s still really tough”. The publisher is undergoing a “process of evolution”, which includes Profile’s finance director Frances Ford retiring after more than 20 years at the company, as Derek Bracken joins from Penguin Random House (PRH). As m.d., Gray has had to learn how to balance everything from comprehending print contracts and running the business day-to-day with maintaining a vision for the future of the publisher. She says it “would be madness to change the vision” for Profile, and that the goal is to “remain independent, publish great books [and] look for sustainable growth,” as well as “publishing into a broader range of genres and categories”.
Profile’s strategy is to stay on the “very sustainable, very measured” path that the company has been on from the start. Gray describes this as “the freedom of safety” and attributes the independent’s meteoric 12-months to a “strong foundation” that was laid out over the years. The Murdle phenomenon, she says, has been “really good fun” for everyone at Profile. “It’s this huge success on Souvenir, which already has The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron and Emily Oster and all these amazing books, and now has a kind of absolute runaway bestseller as well—or several.” The publisher will also release a version for children, Murdle Junior (Souvenir Press), later this month, part of a gentle push into this area. “It’s a really different discipline,” Gray says. “It feels like a really interesting way to try some children’s publishing given that we know what to do with Murdle, we know who that audience is.” The publisher is not “yet” launching a new children’s division, but Karber is writing his debut middle-grade fiction. “That’ll take us in a new direction,” the m.d. adds.
Meanwhile, as social media was overtaken by memes and videos of men saying that they think about the Roman Empire on a daily basis, the publisher was having “a massive year” with Mary Beard’s Emperor of Rome (Profile Books). The book tells the story of emperors like Julius Ceasar and Alexander Severus, and the power they held. Beard’s readers are “committed” to supporting books by the author, who “really knows what she’s talking about” and can make academic subjects appealing to a general audience. As part of the publicity campaign for the book, Beard did a range of events with independent bookshops, as well as some organised by the event company Fane, which Gray says is “able to get these colossal audiences”. Some independent bookshops like Topping & Company Booksellers of Bath can also attract and accommodate large audiences for events, and when it comes to the publicity strategy for each book, Gray’s approach is that “you need to do what the book needs” and find audiences wherever they are.
Profile has always been built on the basis that we want to run a profitable business so that we can remain independent
The Emperor of Rome audiobook has also been very popular with listeners, contributing to the publisher’s success in this area. Audio sales are up 45% year-on-year for Profile, largely driven by frontlist titles like How to ADHD (Souvenir Press) by YouTube creator Jessica McCabe and books like Rashid I Khalidi’s The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine (Profile Books), which was published in 2020 but released in audio for the first time this year. Gray attributes part of this audio boom to Spotify’s streaming model, which allows premium subscribers to access hours of audiobook content every month—whether that is sampling a range of titles or listening to full audiobooks. The m.d. also says that the popularity of Spotify’s audiobook offering has not been “depleting sales elsewhere”, adding: “It’s an energetic team and they’re always looking for opportunities to add to the catalogue in clever ways.”
It was a “Murdle and Mary” year for Profile, but Gray says that these two titles only tell a part of the publisher’s success story. “Profile has always been built on the basis that we want to run a profitable business so that we can remain independent, and that means that every book needs to get what it needs to succeed on its own terms and then wild bestsellers are [the] icing on top,” she explains. The goal has been to maintain “sustainable growth” and Gray says that the “wild growth you get on a Murdle year” is considered “exceptional” but not a necessary target to exceed year-on-year.
Next year will see the release of a range of new titles, including Vicki Tan’s lifestyle book, Ask This Book a Question, and the “genre-blending” Stag Dance by the Women’s Prize-nominated author Torrey Peters, which “explores trans life past, present and future”. On the Viper list, the release of Guy Morpuss’ “courtroom thriller”, A Trial in Three Acts, will be a major publication event, while Profile Books is anticipating the release of Shaun Walker’s book on Russian spies, The Illegals.
Profile is searching for “the next big thing” to publish, and the m.d. calls this approach the “lifeblood” of independents. “We can’t afford to join trends,” she says, “we have to lead.” But “managing expectations”—both within the team and externally—is also part of the process after a year like the one the publisher has had. “There is no way the exceptional year we had is going to be the same this year, although we will absolutely be trying,” Gray says. “We’re unlikely to get a Christmas number one two years in a row and that is absolutely something that we talk about. We manage our own expectations as well as trying to exceed them.”
