PGW Adds Services, Grows Kids

by Judith Rosen -- Publishers Weekly, 10/11/2004

Last fall, Publishers Group West and parent company Advanced Marketing Services unveiled an initiative called PG Worldwide to provide publishers with a global reach—and one set of reporting. Now PGW and AMS are extending that grasp even further through economies of scale made possible via an interlinked program, Publishers Logistics Worldwide.

"We're trying to leverage the combined strength of all our publishers," PGW president Rich Freese told PW. "We're only offering Publishers Logistics Worldwide to PG Worldwide clients. We wanted it to be a tactical advantage."

Since more than half of PG Worldwide's clients print books in China, PLW's first project involves consolidating book shipments overseas before shipping them to the U.S. Freese estimates that the first 70 containers en route from China to the port of Long Beach, Calif., will reduce PG Worldwide clients' shipping costs between 15% to 30%. The program, which will embrace domestic shipping as well as printing, is being headed by PGW COO Chris Kenney.

PG Worldwide is continuing to grow in other ways. Although many of its staffers serve double duty at PGW, Chitra Bopardikar, former director of international sales and rights at McGraw-Hill, became the group's first full-time employee. As v-p of international sales, she is responsible for PG Worldwide's sales and marketing.

At the same time, PGW continues to focus on children's books and its PGW Kids program, led by former PW Rep of the Year Patricia Kelly. Over the past few months, the company has added seven sales and marketing staffers to the program. According to Freese, "PG Kids has done so well for us domestically, it's been identified as an initiative for PG Worldwide."