Three Answers: Jill Cohen

By Dick Donahue, PW Daily -- Publishers Weekly, 3/27/2006

Three Answers today are with Jill Cohen, publisher of Bulfinch Press, whose new imprint, Springboard Press, is launching this fall.

PW: Your new imprint is targeting baby boomers in a variety of lifestyle areas. Why did you start a venture that’s so different from Bulfinch?

JC: We were inspired to create a business with unlimited growth potential, because the illustrated book business is not a growing industry. We were highly aware of the limitations we had at Bulfinch, and we said let’s go after the thing that has no limits. Frankly, we think that the idea for Springboard—creating an imprint for a huge market that is ripe for learning and for reinventing their lives—is a great idea regardless of any relationship with Bulfinch. With illustrated books we don’t have as many distribution channels as we used to and Springboard offers limitless distribution opportunites; these are titles that organizations will want to buy, as well as booksellers. And, unlike the illustrated book business, there’s a potential for huge bestsellers.

PW: There’s a lot of money to be made, isn’t there, from the fact that boomers refuse to get older?

JC: We’re learning a lot from many of these organizations that we’re working with and a lot of the research that we’re seeing. One of things we’re learning is that this is a generation that doesn’t recognize itself as aging at all. But we know what they care about—they care about staying vital, having the energy and looking good and staying in the game and being engaged in life. They’re not doing it about age; they’re doing it about “This is the time in my life where it’s all come together. I want to feel good, I want to look good and I want to matter. I want to do something that feeds my soul.” We also know that these people are readers; they’re from a generation that is still seeking information in a book, as opposed to young people who are referencing only the Net.

PW: Won’t this put you in competition with some of the other Time Warner group’s titles?

JC: We have a very clear focus, which is a tremendous help when you’re acquiring. There are so many books out there that don’t quite fit with Springboard. Warner, for example, does lots of health, lots of wellness and lots of titles for the boomer market. But I think our focus is so explicit that we’re going to go into depth that they may not. The same thing with Little, Brown; we’re all going to overlap, but the depth of what we do, and the focus, is going to be much more intense. As an example, we are aligning ourselves with organizations and media outlets that are focusing on the boomers. I think everyone in the company is excited about having an imprint that is focusing so explicitly that we may be able to bring in more from the outreach that we’re doing and the relationships with people concentrating on this market. We have had authors and agents submit to all three imprints; so far it’s been a very happy, collaborative effort.