Ian Randle Publishers of Jamaica has, over the last two decades, become the leading Caribbean publishing house in the region. It was founded by Ian Randle who in the 1970s began a career in publishing in the UK with the renown firm of Collins before going on to Heinemann, helping to set up its publishing arm in Jamaica.

With considerable experience under his belt, he felt he was able to strike out on his own. Armed with the knowledge he had acquired but very little money and practically no titles, he took the plunge. He initially set up operations in Papine, strategically placing his business close to the University of the West Indies and the University of Technology to signal to the academic community that a new Caribbean publisher had arrived and was located nearby to service their needs.

Slowly, Ian Randle Publishers began putting together a roster of authors that included Hilary Beckles and Verene Shepherd.

The company carved out a reputation as a publisher of academic books, but it also produces books of general interest on all things Caribbean. Ian Randle has a background in history and this may go some way in explaining the publishing house’s predilection for non-fiction.

The early years

A year or two after starting the business, Ian Randle was joined by his wife Carlene, who was a banker at Citizens Bank. She still handles the financial side of Ian Randle Publishers. Today, their daughter Christine is at the helm of the business. She read law at London School of Economics (LSE) before joining the prestigious Jamaican law firm of Dunn Cox.

Ten years ago, as a rising associate at the legal partnership, she asked her father whether he could use her help in running the publishing house. He agreed, and he set about ‘blooding’ her in the publishing world.

She was aware that when her father started the company it had a legal publishing arm. He had her head up that division so she wasn’t totally lost at sea. Today, that imprint is called the Caribbean Law Publishing Company, which publishes the likes of Criminal Practice and Procedure in the Resident Magistrate’s Courts.

Christine Randle recalls that after three years in this new role and getting herself comfortable in the publishing world, her father announced that he was taking a sabbatical.

“It was around 2008 that he said to me that he was taking time off and that I should oversee things at the office. I was only three years into the business and he decided to throw me into the deep end. I didn’t feel overwhelmed because it was the same kind of thing the partners did with me at Dunn Cox. They put you in, give you guidance and then you learn to swim,” she said.

Christine Randle takes over

She said that on his return from this hiatus, she noted that her father continued to take more time away from the business until he asked her to take over, appointing her managing director five years ago after she had returned from maternity leave. He still comes into the well-managed operation, but does not maintain an office there, giving his daughter full autonomy to run the business as she sees fit.

Christine Randle has gathered a good team of professionals and has done her father proud, positioning the publishing house he founded as the number one of its kind in the Caribbean. The titles are well-produced and she has not hesitated to employ digital technology.

“My father has now gone into semi-retirement, but has managed to keep an advisory role which is very beneficial to me because with this kind of business one is always learning,” she told Caribbean Business Report from Ian Randle headquarters in Kingston.

“I am still not able to judge off-the-bat, so to speak, the market for a particular title. One thing I will say, though is that I think this company has survived through innovation, resourcefulness and ploughing back whatever profits have been made into the business,” she added.

Ian Randle recently scored a big coup, winning the tender for the entire Caribbean market to publish syllabuses for CSEC and CAPE (fifth and sixth form exams) as well as the past examination papers. For the past two years, Ian Randle Publishers has been working with the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) which has opened up the Caribbean market even more for the Jamaican publishing house. Outside of the CXC books, the firm publishes 30 titles a year.

Embracing e-publishing

Christine Randle has not hesitated to embrace e-publishing. She sees plenty of opportunities arising from Kindle and other tablets and is positioning Ian Randle Publishers in that direction, as she is of the view that Ian Randle Publishers needs to offer its books on all available platforms.

“With e-publishing, I think it is do or die for the industry,” she said. “Perhaps that may not be the immediate case for the Caribbean but let’s not forget this is a global business. The fact of the matter is e-book sales are outstripping hard copy book sales. Last month, we began creating our e-files and loading our books onto Amazon platforms. The great thing about the Kindle is, once I am able to upload our titles then they become available worldwide as opposed to focusing on Amazon UK, Amazon Canada and so forth. With a market like Canada, which is difficult to get into because of the red tape, this is a fantastic move for us. We began with Valerie Wint’s book on her father, the Olympic-winning athlete Arthur Wint. The recently published book on Usain Bolt, which was produced by a UK publisher, saw them seeking us out to partner with them to take the book into the Caribbean. That means that the likes of Random House, Faber and Macmillian are recognising us as the leading publishing house in the Caribbean.”

This summer, Ian Randle Publishers produced 50 different books for schools, including exam papers. With the somewhat limited resources it has, compared with other more notable publishing houses, it has certainly been prolific. Most of Christine’s staff do not come to the company with a publishing background but as managing director she has managed to create a unique culture and harness her staff’s abilities by infusing them with the necessary skills.

She has certainly instilled a commendable level of loyalty. She concedes that there is not a great deal of money in publishing books in the Caribbean but nevertheless her staff remains steadfast to the task at hand.

The work is detailed-oriented and is time-consuming. There is very little glamour and avenues to express dashing individualism. It is nitty-gritty, with lots of editing, design, proofing and layout involved.

Cost of printing too high in Jamaica

Christine Randle is all too aware of the prohibitive cost of printing in Jamaica and why operators opt to do so abroad. In fact, her entity prints books as close as Trinidad & Tobago and as far away as Hong Kong.

“The reason is that it is far more cost-effective to do so, and that is the bottom line,” she explained. “I would love to print locally, but our printing industry just isn’t as advanced as many other countries. Then there is the question of quality and cost which, unfortunately, is not very competitive in Jamaica. As it stands, I can produce material for a conference in the UK by both printing and delivering there by using the available technology. It is far cheaper than printing in Jamaica.

“Print-on-demand allows me to put a new book on the market with only 200 copies, thus letting me test the market for that title. If it goes well, then I can go to a traditional off-set printer and then print thousands of copies. There’s a particular book which we might sell 50 copies between August and September. Now that’s the only order we get for that book. So rather than print 2,000 copies and have them in my warehouse, I print 50 copies every August, that way my cash flow is freed up and money is not tied up in books in my warehouse which aren’t going to move for another two years. It also means that my inventory levels are never kept too high.”

Christine is not the only one to join the family business. Her brother Graeme is responsible for distribution, having warehouses both in Jamaica and in Miami through which they ship worldwide. After signing with Amazon it became necessary to have a facility in the United States in order to transport books across that vast country.

Ian Randle books are everywhere in Jamaica, yet Christine believes that the company’s greatest weakness is marketing. Kevin O’Brien Chang’s Jamaica Fi Real is a big hit and appears to be on every coffee table.

“People say how do we make our books so popular and that our marketing department is doing a great job. If only they knew!” Christine chuckles.

“In the Caribbean, business is still very much conducted face-to-face and is primarily built on relationships. We spend an inordinate amount of money travelling and going to academic meetings and pitching. We also have an e-mail data base which is most enviable and that has become a major part of our marketing efforts. Our company is still relatively small so it is difficult to quantify marketing efforts, so we have to be innovative, selective and subtle. Mind you, over the last two years we have spent a bit more in that area. There is no doubt that we can produce quality books that can rival anyone in the world. We even now publish books in different languages.”

The managing director of Ian Randle Publishers concluded: “We are particularly proud that all of the intellectual property here hails from the Caribbean. Down to the writing, editing, proofing, layout — the only thing that we do outside the region is print overseas, and that is as a result of globalisation. Our capabilities all reside in-house. I can sit here at my desk and produce and monitor a book electronically that goes across the world. Digital technology has redefined the industry and is a further step in the evolution of books. It is a far cry from when my father started this company 20 years ago.”