whitefox and OC&C: the two self-published titles that led to traditional publishing deals with Pearson and Macmillan
By Hannah Bickerton • • 2 min read
The problem
Award-winning global strategy consultancy OC&C had an extensive backlog of fascinating and insightful content from offices and experts all over the world. Founder and Chairman of OC&C Chris Outram knew that, with the right support, that content could become an essential book for leaders. He dreamt of a book (or books) that would contain interviews with experts, that would be short and concise enough for time-poor managers to use and offer enlightening answers to big strategy questions. Chris met with the whitefox team to outline his ideas. We provided consultation to help him turn the existing content into a carefully curated book that met his expectations.
The solution
whitefox supported Chris and the OC&C team with the full production of their book Making Your Strategy Work: How to Go From Paper to People, working with an expert editorial team to collate pre-existing content and fill the gaps with consistent and engaging text, before copyediting and proofreading the final version. whitefox’s experienced designers and art directors then got to work designing the cover and interior pages of the book to provide the reader with an accessible handbook including tips, checklists and pitfalls to watch out for. After the OC&C team had been presented with, and provided feedback for, a selection of cover options, the final cover was ready and the team could get started with the production process…
The result
With the support of the whitefox team, Making Your Strategy Work was successfully self-published. Containing insights from leading strategy executives, including the CEO of Sainsbury’s, the CEO of Procter & Gamble and with a foreword from Richard Koch, author of The 80/20 Principle and The Financial Times Guide to Strategy, OC&C were thrilled with the result; so thrilled in fact that they decided to self-publish another bespoke book less than two years later, in 2015 – Digital Stractics: How Strategy Met Tactics and Killed the Strategic Plan – with whitefox providing editorial, design and production services.
But our work didn’t stop there. With two successfully self-published books to their name, whitefox was able to sell both titles to traditional publishers – Making Your Strategy Work to Pearson and Digital Stractics to MacMillan.
The OC&C team were thrilled to secure a traditional publishing deal. This is what Chris Outram had to say about the overall experience.
‘When we produced a book for our 25th anniversary, whitefox gave us an excellent, bespoke service. They were quick, creative and dedicated to producing something of real quality. And at the end of it, they also managed to find us a publishing deal. At all times, we felt we were in the hands of experienced professionals and we can’t recommend them highly enough.’ – Chris Outram, Founder and Chairman of OC&C
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