Publishing: Everybody's Doing It (25 Examples of Corporate Publishing)
We often refer to "the wide world of publishing" which comprises the Digital Book World audience: trade publishing, scholarly/academic publishing, independent publishing, educational publishing, and what we call corporate publishing.
Companies and organizations in non-publishing sectors, from healthcare to automotive to banking and beyond, often have the need to publish all types of content internally and externally. This type of corporate publishing requires companies to confront many of the same challenges normal publishers face. As a result, corporate publishers have a home, just like all other types of publishers, at Digital Book World, and represent an important area of growth for both DBW as well as the industry as a whole.
Here are twenty-five companies that are great examples of corporate publishing, which collectively illustrate how widespread this practice has become.
Stripe
Stripe is a payment processing company based in Silicon Valley. In 2018, the company introduced Stripe Press, which publishes books the company and its CEO, Patrick Collison, find to be of interest.
The company has taken a lot of pride in this publishing function that is now within the company, producing very high-quality physical books that have routinely been well reviewed and received.
Southwest Airlines
Southwest Airlines is the world's largest low-cost airline carrier.
The company also owns and operates something called Southwest Airlines University, a large training arm of the company which publishes more content than many publishers do.
Apple
Apple has invested in books and publishing from time to time over the company's history, the majority of it focusing on digital.
The company took an interesting step in 2016 by releasing a super-high-end hardcover coffee table book, encompassing 450 high-resolution pictures of various company products, and charging $300 for it.
Regions Bank
Regions Bank is the second largest company based in Alabama, providing retail and commercial banking, trusts, securities, mortgages, and more.
The company produces and publishes a quarterly magazine called Wealth Insights, making it available to customers of its private wealth management business line.
IBM
IBM (International Business Machines) is one of the largest, most well-known technology companies in the world, based out of New York.
They are also a large publisher, owning IBM Press, which has partnered with Pearson to publish a wide range of books aimed at professionals as well as academia.
Nissan
Nissan is one of the largest automotive companies in the world, based in Japan.
They are also a publisher of significant volumes of material through their Nissan Publications arm, from technical training manuals to e-learning modules to training videos to their Tech Talk magazine.
Mayo Clinic
Mayo Clinic is a non-profit academic medical center based in Rochester, Minnesota, and generally regarded as a premiere healthcare thought leader and institution.
Mayo Clinic's Global Business Solutions arm features the organization's portfolio of original content, which it makes available to other organizations through a variety of methods, including direct API access. Mayo Clinic also pioneered the concept of using voice as a method of delivery of healthcare information, debuting its "First Aid" Alexa skill in 2017.
Mayo Clinic also has an entire website devoted to public-facing publications.
NCAA
The National Collegiate Athletic Association regulates the athletes of 1,268 North American academic institutions.
The organization has a large publishing operation called NCAA Publications, which annually publishes a variety of brochures, guides, and books associated with its various sports and divisions.
Microsoft
Microsoft is one of the largest technology companies in the world, and also is a sponsor of Digital Book World 2019 this fall.
Microsoft not only has an entire books division (called Microsoft Press) but it also has a separate digital learning division, called Microsoft Learn. Both produce and distribute significant amounts of content, easily making the company the equivalent of a mid-size publisher.
Airbnb
Airbnb is a Silicon Valley-based hospitality company which provides an online marketplace for lodging and travel accommodations.
The company publishes a high-quality travel magazine (called Airbnb Magazine) for which they sell subscriptions for six issues annually for $18.
Casper
Casper - yes, the mattress company - "publishes and emotionally supports" a magazine called Woolly, which in their own words, is "a curious exploration of comfort, wellness, and modern life."
The magazine, which is primarily an online publication, also has a 96-page printed volume that is available for sale for $12.
Dollar Shave Club
Dollar Shave Club delivers razors and other grooming products by mail.
They also are a publisher, producing something called Mel, an online magazine with the tagline "Because there's no playbook for how to be a guy."
AARP
The AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) has the mission of empowering people to choose how they live, as they age.
They are also a fairly large publisher, not only publishing their own books and other material, but also selling other books which they believe will be of interest to their members. They do all of this through the AARP Bookstore, their online bookselling operation.
Intel
Intel is one of the largest technology companies in the world, based in Silicon Valley.
They also had an online publication called Intel IQ which reported on new developments related to IOT (the Internet of Things), created to advance the strategic interests of the company. This publication shut down in 2018, though the website is still up.
Dave Ramsey
Dave Ramsey is a well-known radio host and entrepreneur whose career is built on reducing debt and successful managing of money.
Ramsey Press, a subsidiary of Ramsey Solutions (his company), publishes fiction, non-fiction, board games, and more.
ExxonMobil
ExxonMobil is an American oil and gas company which is also the 10th largest company in the world, by revenue.
The company is also a sizable publisher, releasing a wide variety of white papers, case studies, and digital publications each year as part of ExxonMobil Publications. Their original magazine, The Lamp, published for over 100 years before shutting down last year, while the company's overall publishing operations have grown.
Goldman Sachs
Goldman Sachs is perhaps the most well-known investment bank and financial services company in the world, based in New York City.
In a more new-media type of corporate publishing example, Goldman Sachs produces what they call Goldman Sachs Insights, which encompasses video interviews, conference proceedings, and Exchanges at Goldman Sachs, the company's podcast which has been running since 2014.
NASA
NASA, which stands for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, is the agency of the US government which oversees aeronautics and aerospace research, along with our civilian space program.
The organization publishes an immense amount of material each year, from Tech Briefs which provide information NASA has learned in the process of its own research, to digital books commemorating key missions and findings, to quarterly newsletters and other publications designed to promote the activities and overall importance of space exploration.
Third Man Books
Jack White (of The White Stripes) founded Third Man Records in 2001, before locating the company's headquarters in Nashville in 2009.
In 2014, the company launched Third Man Books, to publish books and other related content associated with artists signed to Jack White's label, as well as projects White himself simply finds interesting.
Kickstarter
Kickstarter is a public-benefit corporation based in New York, which has the stated mission of helping bring creative projects to life.
Since 2009, the company has helped fund the creation and distribution of over 15,000 books belonging to all sorts of people and third-party organizations.
They are so involved in publishing that they have hired a Director of Publishing, and produce their own upcoming publishing conference called The Next Page.
Volvo
Volvo is a Swedish automotive company that is the subsidiary of a larger Chinese conglomerate.
The company's Volvo Car Bookstore provides a litany of technical publications and owner support material for every vehicle the company manufactures, as well as a number of digital books and manuals for dealerships across the world.
The Olympics
Even the Olympics, the ultimate competition in modern athletics, is a publisher.
IOC Publications publishes a wide variety of books and manuals, including the official magazine of The Olympics and its longest-standing publication, The Olympic Review.
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art, located in midtown Manhattan, is one of the most influential and largest museums of modern art in the world.
It is also a publisher, producing everything from exquisite hardcover tomes to vanguard interactive digital content - over 1200 online and currently available - through MoMA Publications.
Ohio Secretary of State
Even governmental entities are getting in on corporate publishing to advance their strategic interests.
A great example of this is how Ohio's Secretary of State, Jon Husted, published Ohio: Pathway to the Presidency, in collaboration with a local community college. The book, an interactive work produced using Apple's iBooks Author, earned significant media coverage during the 2016 election.
Every single political candidate for US President (though these books are often not read)
Political hopefuls for President (and often many other political offices) author a book to fuel the launch of their campaign. Sometimes these sell well (e.g. Ben Carson in 2016; Trump's various books) and sometimes they don't (almost all other Republican candidates in 2016).
Democratic hopefuls Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, and Elizabeth Warren all have new books out, among other party hopefuls, in what has almost become a rite of passage of corporate publishing in the US political sphere.
