Rockport Publishers has its eye on design

By DANIEL LISTWA

Essex County Newspapers

ROCKPORT _ What is Rockport? A moment's thought on the Cape Ann getaway brings images of rocky bluffs, a buoy-dotted ocean, sun-bleached Motif No. 1, and white-washed inns with weathered shutters.

By this rationale, it would follow that a company called Rockport Publishers would evoke similar images in its product: salt-water sensibility and old, oaken comfort.

But Rockport Publishers is about as "Rockport" as 1970's wild-child Patty Hearst is William Randolph Hearst.

As publishing goes, the books are not very "Rockport," either. As one of the largest graphic design printers targeting both U.S. and foreign markets, the Rockport imprint features works with wild covers, painted with colors running the spectrum. Inside, glossy color photos display state-of-the-art designs in fields from graphic design to architecture to interior design. Some pictures on and in the books mix and match sepia prints with sharp digital photos; others could not be classified as anything but "electronic" looking.

It seems, when you are one of the leading publishers of graphic design books at home and abroad, you can afford to roll from the tree you grew on. This year, Rockport Publishers will take in $10 million in revenue.

Oddly enough, one of the driving forces behind the international business and its sleekly designed wares was a man who admits he "lived Rockport" for 25 years.

For that time, Stan Patey served as superintendent of the Rockport School District. In 1985, after switching jobs from Rockport to run Groton-Dunstible as their superintnedent, Patey was itching to leave education for something new. At that time, he was approached with a career opportunity by his friend Donald Traynor, a New Yorker and international salesman who represented distribution for most of New York's publishing firms abroad, specifically in Asia.

As a distributor, Traynor would travel from country to country on long trips, selling the design books directly to stores and specialty shops. As year had passed _ whether selling to large book chains in Tokyo or small Malaysian outlets _ Traynor learned that Asian countries had a heavy thirst for American design books. He also learned that they were eager for better products, something Traynor felt he could provide. His wife Janet, a nurse, was at first not crazy about him leaving his steady job for the risk of opening their own company, but soon warmed to the idea.

Still, the Traynors felt they needed partners. On a trip to Rockport to visit the Stan Patey and his wife, Doris, Don and Janet Traynor pitched them the plans: to open a combined distributing and publishing house. While they knew it might take a few years before the publishing end became profitable, they would support the business with their savings, with extra income that the wives would earn nursing, and with the profits from distributing.

Although he knew he might not earn a salary for the first few years, Stan Patey knew it was the opportunity he had been looking for.

"The rationale was there was a demand for these types of books," Patey, 66, said. "We would represent other publishers, probably most of the major publishers, for their international sales, and mostly in Asia."

The Traynors soon moved to Rockport, and the couples opened Rockport Publishers as equal partners, working in Patey's home at 10 Hale St., out of one of Patey's son's bedrooms. Don took charge of sales. Stan managed the company's finances and schedules.

"It was really a mom-and-pop operation at the time," Janet said. "We sat on Stan's son's bed when we used the computers."

The company was also a publishing anomoly, because it did not operate in New York.

"We thought of doing it out of New York," Don said, "but every day it would have been on the phone, on the phone, on the phone."

"And the Pateys would in no way move," Janet said.

Luckily, Telex, the precursor to the fax machine, made it possible for the business to stay in the bedroom, Stan Patey remembered.

While they worked to begin publishing _ the actual process fo hiring designers, writers, editors and printers to create the physical books _ the company stayed alive through Don Traynor's distributing know-how. At its peak, Rockport Publishers represented 22 to 24 publishers in Asia alone.

"There just were not publishers competing in that specialized field," Patey said. "I don't think anyone else had those ties to the international market. Typically, publishers (sell) 95 percent (of their books) in the U.S. We had 65 percent outside the U.S. That was unusual."

While the company was losing money on the publishing end, they were also working toward building a catalog of books. They hired freelance workers at first. The materials would be sent overseas for printing.

A small publishing house "probably could not create these types of books if you'd gone back to the `70s or `60s," Patey said. "They would have been too expensive. But as the costs came down and the cost of traveling and the cost of communication went down, all of this became possible and profitable."

Patey clearly remembers their first book, called "Label Design."

"It was a delight to all of us," Patey said. "Nine by 12, about 220- pages, hardcover, filled with label designs we'd collected from around the U.S."

After three years, the company finally made profits on its own books, and began representing no one but itself. The partners began to take salaries for the first time. Along the way, they moved their business to an apartment on Smith Street. Eventually, they took over the apartment next to that, and then the apartment next to that, until the needed to move from that building as well, and into a small building on Granite Street, across from the Cape Ann Tool Co.

Then, unexpectedly, an offer arrived in 1990 that none of the partners could refuse: they were bought by their present parent company, Quarto Publishers. The company, publically sold on the London Stock Excahnge, approached Rockport Publishers without hostility, Patey said, and won them over because they could promise expansion.

"They had bought another one of our competitors in Europe, a company called Rotovision," he said. "Rotovision suggested to the chairman of the Quarto board that he look at us."

A few months and two offers later, Patey and partners decided to sell.

"We had no intention of selling it," he said. "I was a surprised. My wife and I probably would not have sold, but they were persistent. In hindsight, I'm glad. It worked well."

The sale left all four founders "well-off," Patey said, not willing to name his earnings from the sale.

But the money was enough for the Traynors to leave the company in the first year after Quarto bought Rockport Publishers. Even Patey's wife left after four or five years. But Patey stayed on, becoming the company's president under Quarto.

"I enjoyed it," he said. "I had thought when we were taken over by a large company it would change. But it didn't change. And it was one of the more profitable companies in the group."

By the time Patey left in 1998, the company was creating 90 to 100 new titles a year.

"We'd print 8,000, 10,000, 12,000 copies on the first printing," he said. With their back catalog, they had between 200 and 300 titles in stock, he said.

Today, the numbers Rockport Publishers give are slightly more modest from Patey's numbers. The company does about 80 new titles a year, Publisher Winniw Prentiss said, still focusing on visual and graphic design books with titles like "Creativity," "WWW Design" and "East-West Style."

There have been bumps in the company's past. In Patey's last year, depressed markets abroad and the decline of economies in Korea about two years ago led the company to lay off "three or four" workers, Prentiss said.

"Up until then we had grown every year," she said. "That year, we were flat in sales and lost profits. Quarto is a publicly traded company, and had a responsibility to their shareholders. They said we need to generate more cash."

For Prentiss, who was responsible for deciding who would go, the decision was tough.

"It's something you never want to do," she said. "We work hard to predict what is going to happen."

As part of its recovery, Rockport began to market more toward the United States, just as the country's economy began to skyrocket.

Today, Rockport Publishers sells more than 60 percent of its books in the United States, mostly to specialty book stores and other outlets of the trades. But, thanks to the economy, it now sells a good portion of its books to the larger chains, like Barnes & Noble and Borders, Prentiss said. The company has even been selling books to stores like Pottery Barn, Crate & Barrel, and mass-retailer Target.

And with the Asian markets having picked up again, Prentiss said the challenges Rockport faces today are "good economy" challenges, the type she'll take over slow sales and cutbacks.

"We're trying to create that balance between selling in the United States and abroad," Prentiss said. "How do you create a product that would appeal to consumers in Hong Kong as well as consumers in Iowa? That is what we try to do."

The boom in Internet technology _ while helpful in some ways (the company now markets and sells their books on its Web site, rockpub.com) _ has hurt, too.

"We're having trouble finding employees with experience," Prentiss said, noting that the field competes with online companies for a similar pool of talent. "It is limiting how we can grow.

The company now lives off Gloucester Harbor, in a modern office featuring broad windows and a light-brick, glossed-wood finish. As Cape Ann goes, it is young and fresh; as New York and Boston go, its still Cape Ann.

Still, Prentiss sees the benefits that Patey once saw in operating here.

"We have a lot of personality we wouldn't have," Prentiss said. There are a lot of preconceived notions of how publishing corporations should be run. When you are not in New York City, or other places where the industry exists, you make your own way. You have a more open mind about how companies should exist."