Books are What We Believe In

What We Stand For
A Manifesto . . . of Sorts

We Believe a Book is Forever . . .

We believe in the power and the permanency of books. Since the first books of the ancient torah scrolls were painstakingly penned, the idea of thoughts bound in a volume have carried a mighty weight. A myriad media have come and gone since then, most of them in the last half century, and most have become dusty memories of sundry magnetic tapes and batteries of ones and zeros. But the book remains.

Many of our publications are commemorative books. Others are company histories, and we’ve also developed children’s books, atlases, biographies, and picture books. Our books should not be mistaken for Dante’s The Divine Comedy, one of the greatest works in world literature, but nonetheless we have had clients tell us they cried with joy upon reading our manuscripts. We have seen them gasp with delight at our designs. We’ve been invited to huge parties—five hundred, a thousand people—the sole purpose of which was to debut the book we developed for them. And we have been equally honored to have thrilled small nonprofits with their book.

It’s Not Personal; It’s Business . . .

First, we are a business. We believe in process and contracts and delivering our books on time. Our clients expect us to meet their expectations, deadlines, and budgets, and we expect our vendors to meet theirs. Numbers are our lifeblood and they define our reality, outlined as they are in financial statements and spreadsheets. This doesn’t mean we always agree with those numbers and when the markets are in turmoil, we may not even like those numbers very much. But they belong to us and we take responsibility for them. In 1989, our first year, we grossed under $10,000. We now do about $1.7 million a year. To put our revenue in perspective, that means that at any given time we have from eight to fifteen books underway depending on the size of the contracts. So we are still a small business and Simon & Schuster is not looking over its shoulder.

As a business, we hold as sacred our margins—that is, the difference between the cost and the revenue on any given book. We believe our clients like to know that we run Bookhouse Group as a business, even if employees’ dogs roam about our office.

Except When It’s Personal . . .

But we are also craftsmen and craftswomen. And making books—writing, designing, photographing, and manufacturing them—is a craft. And the machinations of craftsmanship and the press of business don’t always peacefully comingle. So sometimes we have to massage the process and bend the contract in order to do something better, to make something right, to accommodate anything from high maintenance (vendors and, yes, clients alike) to high standards. And on occasion, with great gnashing of teeth that send the aforementioned dogs diving for cover, we have to sacrifice the margins we hold sacred.    

Family Can Drive You Crazy . . .

We are a family comprised of employees, vendors, clients. And as a family we celebrate new contracts, delight in a client’s happiness, and wish everybody well. And also as a family, we argue, pull our hair in dismay over client’s instructions, and swear to never, ever use a certain vendor again. Unless they’re really, really good. And then we welcome them back into the family. Or at least some of us do. And as with any family, members say good bye and we wish them the best. Some say good bye, and, well, we don’t say anything. We’re not dysfunctional, but we never said we were perfect, either.

Nor are we a democracy. We don’t take votes. The vast majority of day-to-day decisions are made at the most immediate level, though responsibility rests at the top. It is usually the right decision, even if it wasn’t the same decision the top person would have made. But here’s the thing—the decision was made based on all that you’ve read prior to this. And we push on.

Let's Talk about bringing your book to life.