Testimonials

We are producing a new genre of books – namely books for people living with dementia. Whilst we know our audience well and we are confident in our product’s potential, we faced with challenges navigating aspects of the book publishing industry – in particular, printing and distribution. Simon and Jason helped us adroitly, leveraging their extensive contacts and listening to our needs.

PCG have advised us on two projects so far, digital distribution and marketing, and I fully expect we’re use them again. They listen to our problems, work out a plan to investigate and address them, and then deliver solutions through both written reports and support materials and meetings to discuss their proposals.

“We are so grateful for Simon and his team with their support and advice to help investigate and recommend changes where necessary with our Amazon account. Their tips set in order of priority were invaluable to our business and we hope to see reap the fruits of our labour soon. Simon has been consistent with his communication and door always open for small and large questions each handled in a palatable fashion to ensure understanding both at the time and with follow ups. Can’t recommend this team enough.”

We commissioned PCG to review our operational design and help us identify development areas that will enable delivery of our strategic objectives. Simon and the team at PCG fully engaged with our in-house team to understand our business before applying their extensive market knowledge to tailor bespoke recommendations. We are very pleased with the PCG outputs which will assist our long-term decision-making.

PCG produced a detailed report for us assessing our current performance with Amazon and how we might optimise that relationship. Simon and Jason were a pleasure to work with and came up with some very valuable insights particularly around title visibility/discoverability and advertising. They have definitely re-energised our approach to working with Amazon and encouraged us to make marginal gains in order to maximise our sales.

Simon’s company offers a clear plan of action. Their guidance and advice are essential to navigate the challenging world of online publications. I am delighted to be included in their growing list of companies using their services.

The Publishing Consultancy Group provided us with a very detailed report on our Amazon presence. They suggested a number of helpful updates to existing titles, and how we can consider using Amazon to allow new and lead publications to reach their potential.

“Acair asked the Publishing Consultancy Group to conduct a review of our Amazon operations. We were very timeously provided with a comprehensive and helpful report. Simon and Jason were also very willing to meet with Acair staff in order to talk through recommendations and were very flexible and approachable throughout the process.”

“We at StoryLearning Press have been truly delighted to partner with PCG to help define our three-year expansion plan. They provided us with a truly insightful perspective into the world of traditional publishing, as well as finding strategic solutions that could be turned into meaningful action by our team. Moreover, their dedication, expertise and the time they took to fully understand our needs and concerns were exemplary. We would definitely recommend their services to any independent publisher looking for practical and actionable recommendations aimed at expanding their distribution network and/or defining their operational strategies.”

“Simon and Jason have worked on a project with us to identify ways for us to optimise our metadata and develop a strategy to improve our performance on Amazon. Their work has been insightful, detailed and thorough, and their recommendations are extremely useful. They’ve provided us with a plan for ongoing improvements, and we could not be more pleased with their input.”

“Simon and Jason employed years of expertise and industry knowledge to help us review our existing book distribution set up. Their exhaustive report has proven to be exactly what we needed to help improve how our books are sold, and to give us a better understanding of the current publishing landscape. I would highly recommend their services and won’t hesitate to engage with them again in the future.”

‘We started working with Simon Pollard and the team at PGC in 2022 and it has been such a pleasure. They are energetic, polished, flexible, and friendly, and the knowledge they have passed on to our member publishers is invaluable for them in growing their sales. With a team that has such widespread knowledge we know that we will continue to collaborate with PGC with future projects.’

Following on from the operations report which we asked PCG to commission earlier in the year, we decided to extend our partnership with PCG further. From the summer of 2022, we have been outsourcing our marketing requirements to the team monthly. This mainly involves PCG leading our marketing approach online with Amazon in helping us to optimise our performance via this channel. Tash has been fantastic in providing invaluable and comprehensive leadership and insights month to month. She has defined and executed on our behalf eye-catching marketing campaigns to lift our frontlist and backlist titles and to help us make the most of opportunities across this key sales channel. Our overall Amazon performance, focus and understanding has improved and we are indebted to the guidance and support coming from the whole team. Tash and the team are hard-working, sales-driven, collaborative, careful in the management of budget and above all are dedicated and a pleasure to work with.

Simon Pollard and Jason Cooper have been extremely thorough in their analysis of our business. Their knowledge and understanding of how to work with Amazon has given us valuable advice on how to improve our sales and marketing at a very detailed level; we are now in a position to plan an efficient strategy to manage our growing business. The time and money has been very well spent and we would highly recommend PCG.

“Excellent service from the team at PCG. They leveraged their expertise in ways which generated true, immediate value for our business, and did so in a way which was highly responsive to our challenging work-flows and unique needs. They quickly stepped in and helped when we needed a swift turn-around, and did so in an approachable, professional, and effective manner. We’d recommend the Publishing Consultancy Group wholeheartedly.”

We have been working with PCG since July 2021. Simon Pollard and his team have been nothing but highly professional:
Simon has been able to gather a team of experts who, each in their specialty, have all provided very valuable insights and advice, as and when we needed it.
There has been a strong drive from Simon to reorganise our marketing and sales activities overall, something the PCG team has done very well, while keeping within the agreed budget.
Most importantly, Simon has been able to bring energy and enthusiasm for marketing and sales, a field that, as technology people, we had never really had an interest in.

Raintree was delighted that the PCG team brought energy and enormous insight into tackling our ‘Ask’, “how do we better understand our performance with Amazon and strategically grow sales”. They provided us with a clear and focused set of strategic priorities which we will now as a business employ. It’s been a pleasure to get to know Simon and the team and we would recommend their services to any business looking to understand how to improve performance with Amazon.

“PCG took time to fully understand our needs and showed considerable flexibility, insight and experience in designing the consultation which was centred around distribution enablement and designing appropriate ‘Go To Market’ sales strategies. They quickly executed a thoroughly researched project that provided practical, actionable recommendations that met our stated goals, within an agreed timeframe and budget. The whole of the Executive Leadership Team feels that PCG’s work has added considerable value to our plans for the future. PCG’s approach is highly collaborative and they are a pleasure to work with. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend their services.”.

“The work from Lucy and the PCG team have been a real asset for us. Lucy’s approach to firstly understand the core values of our journals programme, mixed with her expertise and valuable experience, helped us to successfully launch our journals marketing strategy and plan that we are confident of implementing. Lucy’s practical and meaningful delivery provided us with a clear plan and within the agreed budget. I would very much recommend PCG to any press or publisher looking to create high level marketing strategies and practical implementation plans.”

We were delighted to have the opportunity to work with Simon on our plans for developing an open access textbook publishing programme. Simon took the time to listen carefully to the brief and presented us with detailed plans for his approach for our input before proceeding. He brought in expert colleagues to cover particular areas of the work and scheduled regular catch ups along the way. This considered and thoughtful approach ensured that the report we received covered everything we needed, and we now have detailed information and plans for a marketing and dissemination strategy that will help us as we develop our programme. It was a pleasure to work with Simon and his colleagues and we would recommend PCG highly.

“Since March 2020, Simon has been working with BIC to help further develop our strategic partnership engagement, grow and diversify our membership base, and investigate new revenue opportunities. Simon is easy to work with, knowledgeable, highly professional and reliable. He is an expert in stakeholder management – building and maintaining strong relationships across the various sectors of the book industry, and has quickly become an advocate of BIC’s vision, strategy, activities and agenda. Despite the impact of COVID-19, Simon has succeeded in recruiting new members for BIC, which is a testament to his professional tenacity and dedication. I would not hesitate to recommend Simon’s services to anyone in the book industry.”

“Simon worked on a project for Kogan Page, investigating new sales channels to sell directly to senior decision makers within universities. I was impressed with his professionalism, market insight and approach to working with stakeholders across the business. Simon’s approach was collaborative and he helped us think through our requirements, and formulate a clear strategy, goals and sign off stages for the project, which was delivered successfully and was extremely beneficial in informing our wider sales strategy. I would highly recommend Simon’s consultancy services to anyone in academic and professional publishing”.

“We’ve been impressed with Simon’s and PCG’s professionalism and quality. They hold themselves accountable for meeting their goals, and their expertise and experience is unparalleled. A pleasure to work with.”

As a business we have worked with Simon for many many years. He has in depth knowledge across the educational and academic publishing channels embracing the multitude of complexities needed to bring a book to market and reach its desired destination and commercial goals. On a personal level Simon is an approachable, honourable and sincere individual who is able to make and take difficult conversations and decisions, not just the easy ones. His advice and guidance should prove constructive to anyone trading in this commercial channel’.

I’ve worked with Simon over a number of years in the various roles he has held at Pearson. I’ve always found him to be an open and engaging colleague, with a positive outlook. He has excellent industry knowledge, particularly in the academic and schools publishing sphere (covering print and digital formats, for everything from traditional textbooks, to courseware, assessment platforms etc). Given that extensive knowledge base its not a surprise to me that Simon is now looking to utilise those skills in a consultancy role for his next challenge. I can see how his knowledge and experience would add value to authors, publishing houses and aggregators (retailers, libraries and wholesale) in rights management, strategic sales management and planning and content marketing’.

Last year I have met Simon Pollard at an IPG meeting in London, sponsored by PCG, and from then on everything improved for Brambleby Books. Simon suggested a distributor that would suit our business and which we desperately need after working with a fulfilment company for many years. Now we are developing (with expert assistance) a new website which we eagerly await in January. It has been a pleasure working with Simon as he has a vast knowledge on various topics in publishing, especially with regards to sales. He always keeps calm, and I appreciated his friendly nature. I can highly recommend working with him and his company PCG.

“It was a pleasure to work with Simon in his role supporting Blackwell’s Oxford Brooke’s University. Simon, is hugely respected for the insights he provides with regard to Academic Bookselling and he provided me with strong strategic insights into our shop’s role on campus”.

Lawrence is one of the best if not the best person I have known in the rights business. I have known Lawrence for almost twenty years now since I was with Pearson Asia, buying rights from him and his team. There were times when the deals were so complicated as they involved so many parties, Lawrence was able to sort out those issues on a win-win basis. His calm and friendly manner in dealing with people and issues makes him such a wonderful person to deal with. Even after leaving Pearson and joining World Scientific Publishing, meeting Lawrence at Frankfurt Book Fair every October is always one of the highlights of my trip there.

Lawrence created and led perhaps one of the most accomplished teams of international rights sales people in the publishing industry through a period of rapid growth and a time of very complex changes. He is a fantastic team leader, which is evident from the love and respect that his team members have for him and the steadfast performance of the group. I have been an internal customer for Lawrence and have also met with several of his external customers. He has built enduring relationships with his customers, nurtured with empathy and responsiveness and this is borne out by the goodwill he and his team have earned in the marketplace.