An Entrepreneurial Joint Venture in International Academic Publishing

by Sally Taylor -- Publishers Weekly, 4/11/2003

Alpha Science International Ltd (ASI) based in Pangbourne England was established by Paul Goulding in March 2000. Since then they have published more than 100 titles in all areas of science, technology and medicine under the ASI imprint, as well as distributing over 200 titles published by Narosa Publishing House in India.

Goulding was President -- Asia for Addison-Wesley and Times Mirror International Publishers, for more than 12 years, based in Singapore. He worked in London as President -- Asia for Harcourt International before leaving the company in October 1999.

For more details, contact him at alphascience@aol.com.

Here is his report:

Alpha Science was conceived when I met N.K. (Nandi) Mehra at the World Book Fair in New Delhi in February 2000. We had known each other for many years, since I had first started visiting India to sell books in 1982. Nandi Mehra had founded Narosa Publishing House in 1977 to publish mainly graduate level books in STM areas. Since then his list had flourished and he was publishing 20-30 new science, mathematics and medical titles each year. Narosa had established a mosaic of co-publishing arrangements in USA and Europe with major international publishers to help make their titles available in Europe and North America.

I wanted to start my own publishing business and knew from experience that India offered low cost high quality printing and production facilities. The deregulation of the Indian economy in the 1990's led to massive improvement in the quality of books printed in India on imported paper using imported machines but with India's low cost base. In addition India offered very low but economical print runs. This was ideal, because we needed to hold minimum inventory of anything we published.

Mehra agreed to help manage the print and production of my titles and I agreed to market all Narosa titles internationally. Thus Alpha Science was born over a handshake and plate of hot kebabs in New Delhi Golf Club.

"Narosa had always had an outward looking approach and wished to publish internationally. With this objective in mind, we focused on global distribution and as such a mutual arrangement with Paul to co-publish and distribute Naorsa books was a welcome development" Mehra says.

ASI quickly established a global network of freelance representatives based on contacts in the industry. Durnell Marketing in Tunbridge Wells, England were appointed European representatives. Associates and former colleagues of mine were appointed as representatives in Singapore, Taiwan, Korea and Japan. Marston Book Services in Abingdon Oxfordshire were appointed the distributor of ASI and Narosa titles. ASI's UK sales representatives are Quantum Publishing Solutions.

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