With headquarters in Sharjah, London, and New York, Austin Macauley Publishers has established itself as a creative, independent book publisher since our inception in 2006. Our publications range from Fiction to Non-Fiction and Children’s Books to Young Adult, in both Arabic and English languages.
Our mission is to bring the world closer together, one book at a time. Be it by using the latest technology or starting literary conversations; we want to be a valued part of publishing, both in print and electronically. We are dedicated to open up the world of publishing at a time when many publishers are turning their backs on untried and new authors. We believe in turning manuscripts into professionally published books, loved by readers.
The first stages of the Covid-19 pandemic showed widespread impacts across the publishing sector, with us, in particular, looking for ways to strategize to compete in the changing environment and consumer needs.
Initially, the publishing industry was highly impacted by the closure of retailers. Bookstores are integral to selling books and raising the author’s profile through the form of book readings and events, which affected many independent publishers, like us.
International Book Exhibitions that take place around the globe, that are essential for developing working relationships, selling books to consumers, and negotiating business and rights deals were cancelled. With London Book Fair being the first cancelled event for us, followed by many others, including the Sharjah Children’s Reading Festival and Abu Dhabi Book Fair, affected the publishing industry in all corners of the globe.
Many online stores also started only to deliver essential items, which posed many threats and opportunities. We had to focus further on our own website and selling strengths, rather than relying on other online stores we work with to have our books available to readers.
Logistical issues were also apparent through the pandemic with longer lead times on delivery, which posed a threat to our audience’s demographics. However, as the pandemic forced people indoors, with limited means to entertain themselves, we strategized our efforts towards the sales and marketing of our E-books and audiobooks as well as our backlist titles, as an easily accessible form of entertainment for many around the world. It was important for us to take responsibility in the creative sector to continue to entertain, educate, and inform readers worldwide during an unusual time.
With the recent easing of restrictions in many regions, retailers are slowly opening their doors to readers but are still having to react to the many changes. Bookstores are starting to offer virtual reading opportunities for authors and readers to watch online as the new normal.
Many International Book Exhibitions, including Frankfurt International Book Fair, moved to a virtual environment, with meetings and seminars taking place over the internet. We have proactively continued to keep in touch with many in the industry through virtual interactions rather than face to face interactions. We are still anticipating the day we can network in person with our fellow publishing colleagues collectively, as publishing is undoubtedly a ‘people’s’ business.
Like others, our main challenges were financial and operational as a result of the crisis. We continue to upgrade and change our marketing strategy more regularly than usual, analyse and listen to our audiences, attend virtual events and conferences, taking part in more workforces generated by industry bodies, work closer with our worldwide staff and with our distributors to ensure we are consistently proactive to the imposing changes and trends in the industry.
Our marketing strategy changed to have a key focus on selling and marketing our E-book, Audiobook, and backlist titles and as a result, this change had shown a growth of sales by 36% in our UK office and 56% in our USA office. Although this is a key objective built within our pre-pandemic strategy, our staff had more time to analyse the current market and trends, initiate more discount and sale opportunities, work closer with our distributors, highlighting our online presence and focus on virtual opportunities for our authors where possible.
As a publisher, we continually publish a range of different titles every month, bringing new products to the market regularly in both print and digital; we look forward and anticipate reacting to market trends every month more so than pre-pandemic times, to improve our book marketing strategies further as we continually move to a more digital orientated market.
We plan to launch virtual book readings, online book clubs, host writing workshops for upcoming writers and authors by creating a free resource hub that everyone can have access to. This resource hub will include information in both text and video format to help aspiring writers strengthen their craft.
Over the years, the company has continued to invest in developing different book formats to improve our quality of services, including printed books, e-books, and audiobooks. We have also improved the quality of our animation, graphics, and video services in our marketing department to keep up with the ever-changing audiences and consumer perceptions online. At many international exhibitions, we have looked to develop and work with a diverse selection of illustrators to improve the quality in all of our offices. Our extensive experience since 2006 in the creation and development of books and our authors is a commitment we make set out in our vision, and we are proud to publish a selection of quality and talented first-time authors and previously published authors.
