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Why are we launching new brands? Packt is somewhat unique in terms of IT publishers. We print books on demand and sell, almost exclusively, directly to our customers from our website. This allows us to print books which sell in relatively small quantities. Accordingly, we can publish on very specific subjects and nascent areas. As a publisher, we live or die by our books. It’s therefore important for us to have good, focused knowledge of technologies and their advancements. With the rapid growth in Open Source software (Gartner reported that 85% of companies use Open Source software in November 2008), and in major Enterprise software (made by companies such as IBM, Microsoft and Oracle), we are releasing more and more books – 190 are due in 2010. Yet as we grow, we risk losing our ability to focus so greatly on specific areas of software whilst remaining credible as a publisher. This is where the new brands come in. Each brand will have personnel focused exclusively on either Enterprise or Open Source software, and this will allow the books to excel in their specific topic areas.

What will change? I imagine that you already expect us to change the branding of our future books, and this will be happening. Keep up to date with the blog for branding information, including new book cover styles, and new logos. We are also looking for a wider range of cover images than ever, so if you have even a passing interest in photography, take a look at what we need, and you could have one of your pictures on the cover of a book – imagine how good you’ll feel when you can show that off to your friends. We will be increasing our commitment to the communities around which our books are based. You are probably aware of our work with the Open Source Royalty Scheme, by which Open Source projects receive a percentage of the revenue from each book sold about their software, and our Open Source CMS Award. We are looking to expand both of these projects, and have plans afoot to become more involved with Enterprise communities, because our work with them is growing. Ultimately, wouldn’t you agree that continuing to focus our activities on you, the reader, is important? This unusual branding move is, we believe, the best way of going about doing this.

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