Why a Health Care Society Publishing Program Makes Sense

Developing or expanding a non-periodical publishing program is a natural way for a health care society to extend its mission to provide meaningful continuing education content for its members. 

Two obstacles for most societies are lack of direct experience of the management team in building a publishing program and the investment required to launch a broad-based non-periodical publishing program. The Publishing Services Division of Doody Enterprises addresses these two obstacles by offering products, consulting services, and contracted services for its society clients.

The Principals

The two principals of the division, Dan Doody and Rich Lampert, have a combined 61 years of experience developing publishing programs for the major medical imprints in health sciences publishing, including Elsevier, W. B. Saunders, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Mosby-Year Book, Year Book Medical Publishers, and Marcel Dekker, Inc.

A 30-year veteran of the medical publishing industry, Dan Doody has run his own online medical publishing company since January 1993. The company specializes in providing personal weekly information updates to the members of professional health societies which license this literature update service from Doody. In addition, Doody Enterprises is the market leader in publishing expert reviews of newly published books and software in the health sciences. As such, Doody Enterprises manages the most comprehensive database of book and software titles in the health sciences.

Prior to founding his own company, Dan worked for 15 years in various general management, editorial development and sales and marketing capacities for medical publishing divisions. For 13 years he worked for Mosby-Year Book, where he served a Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Year Book imprint (a $25 million business), and as Executive Vice President of the $45 million International Division.

Rich Lampert is a leader in health science publishing programs with 31 years of experience, blending a continuing interest in hands-on acquisitions with management and executive roles.  In his most recent corporate position, Rich was Vice President, Global Surgery, at Elsevier, generating some $50 million in global sales within the $900 million Health Science Division. From 1999 to 2003, sales of the publishing program grew by 50%, spurred by an increased use of electronic media (particularly Web and PDA) and aggressive efforts to grow book publishing programs in strategic specialties.

Since 2004, Rich has worked full-time as a consultant, with engagements that include publishing and editorial strategy, strategic and product acquisitions, marketing, sales, portal strategy, and Website development.

Products and Services

Products: Documents developed to provide commonly requested perspectives and skills.

• Best Practices reports. These reports reflect our combined 61 years of experience in both commercial publishing and consulting. We offer reports on editorial best practices (acquisitions plus development), on sales / marketing best practices, and on best practices of a fully integrated nonperiodical publishing program.
• Business structure benchmarking analysis. We provide case studies and comparisons of several society publishing programs – for-profit and not-for-profit, mission-driven and market-driven approaches, and practices in areas such as author compensation, outsourcing and partnering, and organizational structure.
• How to develop a Strategic Publishing Plan; how to develop an Editorial Plan. The process behind these key planning documents is at least as important as the specifics of writing and presentation. We set forth a program and a schedule that can enable an organization to manage this process with its own resources.
• Guerilla marketing. How to generate high-impact results from low-cost marketing tactics. We provide a menu of proven ideas that you can implement quickly.
• Managing the outside Advisory Board. We and some of our clients have obtained important and dynamic input from experts who do not reside with our organization, based on proven principles that we outline in this report.
• Product Development Tool Kit. This is a group of informational and financial templates (provided as Microsoft Office templates), along with technical instructions on how to use them as well as a description of an effective product development process.

Consulting services: Generally performed on a project basis, with both principals closely involved in organizing the project, acquiring information, interviewing stakeholders, and preparing a report. Whenever possible, our consulting engagements conclude with a face-to-face briefing for our clients, and we offer a complimentary diagnostic checkup approximately six months after the completion of a project.

• Publishing Audit: We examine dozens of specific practices of a society publisher, from editorial planning through invoicing. Our audit reports generally describe specific practices within a society, describe industry best practices, and offer recommendations where indicated to optimize the society's publishing functions.
• Focused audits: Our audit process can encompass just editorial, sales / marketing, or management issues.
• Development of key plan documents: With input from the society's staff (often a highly participative brainstorming session), we devise a Strategic Publishing Plan, Editorial Plan, or Electronic Publishing Plan. Whenever possible, we document our process so that our clients can update our document themselves on an annual basis.
• Discovery and analysis of new business opportunities: Based on Doody Enterprises' unparalleled information resources, we use gap analysis and other techniques to identify unmet publishing needs within a society's disciplines.
• Discovery and analysis of portal publishing opportunities: We examine a society's information assets and suggest optimal ways to aggregate them for delivery via the Web. We also sketch out a range of possible revenue models and discuss organizational implications for the client.
• "State of the Market": A publishing opportunity analysis that draws on a specialty-specific, expert Editorial Review Group as well as our internal information resources.

Contract services: One or both of our principals can serve as an offsite member of your operational staff to facilitate new initiatives or simply to fill staff vacancies.

• Acquisitions editor / editorial management and development:: We serve as a hands-on acquisitions editor, starting with your own target list or developing one, to approach potential authors on a society's behalf. We can also supervise and manage in-house acquisitions people and can foster their professional development.
• Sales management: We oversee one or more sales channels, interfacing as necessary with marketing and fulfillment operations to optimize results.
• Marketing management: We develop and / or implement marketing plans, focusing on a specific group or products (or all of your products) and on a specific channel (or all channels.)
• General management: Working part-time within your offices and being accessible full-time via phone and email, we can oversee your publishing program and focus as needed on critical shortfalls.

How to Get Started

If you would like a representative to contact you regarding the products and services provided by the Publishing Services Division, please contact the Doody Enterprises, Inc., Sales Department at sales@doody.com or call 312.239.6226. We are happy to arrange a FREE 90-minute needs assessment to help you clarify the best way for us to address your challenges.