THIS WEEK
Company Spotlight SPCK
The new era of publishing key for SPCK
The 321-year-old Christian charity has turned from missionary work, to education, bookselling and publishing, and its c.e.o. is backing a digital future
g . is Mark Chandler @mark_chandler C
hristian publisher SPCK is harnessing the power of apps, data and old-fashioned fiction in an atempt to further boost its sales and secure its future.
With a history dating back to 1698, SPCK is one of the oldest publishers and c.e.o. Sam Richardson, who once ran 1,698 miles to raise money for the registered charit, sees its focus as having changed throughout that long history, from missionary work in the 18th century, schooling in the 19th, and bookshops in the 20th. “The 21st century is very much about publishing and we’re still working on what that looks like,” he said. Starting in the trade through the HarperCollins gradu-
ate scheme, Richardson dipped in and out of religious publishing before heading to Hodder and, eventually, bagging the top job at SPCK five years ago. It was a period when the religious publisher was just coming out of a long- running legal dispute over the handover of its bookshops to St Stephen the Great Charitable Trust. He explained: “The trust at SPCK had gone through a very difficult time, what with the bookshops closing down, and the trustees were quite keen to send a message of change. I guess having someone who looked relatively fresh- faced—though I’m not sure I still do—was one of the things they wanted, along with [someone with] experience of working with the bigger publishers who would be able to bring some of those ideas about how they do things.” Richardson said the bookshop saga meant “confidence was quite low” when he arrived. “It was a real opportunit to say, OK, that era’s behind us, we’re now very much in a publishing era in the 21st century, what does that need to look like? The response of the team in rising to that challenge has been a real encouragement, and has proven what I saw when I came in, which was that we had some really strong people in the organisation who understood the market really well.” What followed has been healthy growth, with TCM sales up from £1.14m in 2014 to £1.55m last year. Under
18 12th July 2019
We haven’t yet passed the point where half our income is digital but I think we’re heading in that direction
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