Innovation, Expansion, and Transformation
The Ridge Publishing Group. CEO Annual Report
Editorial Contact:
Amanda Stills
Public Relations Manager
The Ridge Publishing Group, Phone: 208-416-1030, Email: press@RidgePublishingGroup.com
Coeur D’Alene, ID (January 4, 2023) – The Ridge Publishing Group passed many milestones in 2022: by year-end, we relocated the Company; Ethan Fox Books released book #2, Ethan Fox and the Shadow Princess, in the Ethan Fox Books original series; Ethan Fox Books released Wordly Pagemore’s Early Worm Activities & Games: Ethan Fox and the Shadow Princess Edition; and The Ridge Publishing Group developed the New Narrated Study Bible series by Lori Ann Moeszinger comprising three series: (1) New Narrated Study Bible: The Holy Bible at a Glance, one book, (2) New Narrated Study Bible: The Holy Bible in Chronological Order, nine books, (3) New Narrated Study Bible: The Holy Bible by Subject Matter, 12 books, and (4) Total Surrender – My Story: An Autobiography by Lori Ann Moeszinger. All scheduled to be released in 2023.
Today, online commerce saves publishers and customers alike money and precious time. Since we have partnered with Amazon.com and IngramSparks.com, online commerce continues to accelerate the very process of discovering our books online. Both Amazon.com and IngramSparks.com uses the internet to create real value for its customers and, by doing so, has created enduring franchises, even in established and large markets – eliminating the author-publisher barrier into Publishers’ Row and offering author-publishers an alternative utilizing these online venues.
We have a window of opportunity as larger players marshal the resources to pursue the online opportunity and as customers, new to publishing online, are receptive to forming new relationships. The competitive landscape has continued to evolve at a fast pace. Many large players (Publishers’ Row) have moved online with credible offerings and have devoted substantial energy and resources to building awareness, traffic, and sales. Our goal is to move quickly to solidify and extend our current position while we begin to pursue the online commerce opportunities in other areas as well. For example, producing our books in audio formats, brail formats, multiple language formats to capture the international markets, and so forth. Another example, think “Disney Store,” which is a goal to assimilate for the Ethan Fox Books franchise. Again, working with Amazon.com as a third party vendor selling our Ethan Fox Books merchandise. We see substantial opportunity in the large markets we are targeting. This strategy is not without risk: it requires serious investment and crisp execution against established franchise leaders.
2022 CEO Annual Report: It’s All About the Long Term
We believe that a fundamental measure of our success is the value-add we create through our publications over the long term. This value will be a direct result of our ability to extend and solidify our current market leadership position. The stronger our market leadership, the more powerful our economic model. Market leadership can translate directly to higher revenue, higher profitability, greater capital velocity, and correspondingly stronger returns on invested capital.
Our decisions have consistently reflected this focus. We first measure ourselves in terms of the metrics most indicative of our market leadership: customer and revenue growth, the degree to which our customers continue to purchase from us on a repeat basis, and the strength of our brand. We have invested and will continue to invest aggressively to expand and leverage our customer base, brand, and infrastructure as we move to establish an enduring business
Because of our emphasis on the long term, we may make decisions and weigh tradeoffs differently than some companies. Accordingly, we want to share with you our fundamental management and decision-making approach so that you, our partners, may confirm that it is consistent with your investment philosophy:
- We will continue to focus relentlessly on our customers.
- We will continue to make investment decisions in light of long term market leadership considerations rather than short term profitability considerations.
- We will continue to measure our programs and the effectiveness of our investments analytically, to jettison those that do not provide acceptable returns, and to step up our investment in those that work best. We will continue to learn from both our successes and our failures.
- We will make bold rather than timid investment decisions where we see a sufficient probability of gaining market leadership advantages. Some of these investments will pay off, others will not, and we will have learned another valuable lesson in either case.
- When forced to choose between optimizing the appearance of our GAAP accounting and maximizing the present value of future cash flows, we’ll take the cash flows.
- We will share our strategic thought processes with you when we make bold choices (to the extent competitive pressures allow), so that you may evaluate for yourselves whether we are making rational long term leadership investments.
- We will work hard to spend wisely and maintain our lean culture. We understand the importance of continually reinforcing a cost-conscious culture, particularly in a business incurring net losses.
- We will balance our focus on growth with emphasis on long term profitability and capital management. At this stage, we choose to prioritize growth because we believe that scale is central to achieving the potential of our business model.
We aren’t so bold as to claim that the above is the “right” investment philosophy, but it’s ours, and we would be remiss if we weren’t clear in the approach we have taken and will continue to take.
With this foundation, we would like to turn to a review of our business focus, our progress in 2022, and our outlook for the future.
Obsess Over Customers
From the beginning, our focus has been on offering our customers compelling value. We realized that the Web was, and still is, the World Wide Wait. Therefore, we set out to offer customers something they simply could not get any other way, and began serving them with books. We brought them much more selection than a couple of books targeting a couple of genres. Therefore, we set out to offer customers something they simply could not get any other way, and began serving them books that both educate and entertain – our imprints and subsidiaries are focused on kids, parents, teachers, and the lost. We maintain a dogged focus on improving the content of our books and shopping experience. From our website, we offer customers gift cards, 1-Click shopping through Amazon.com, and vastly more reviews, content, browsing options, and recommendation features. We dramatically lowered prices, further increasing customer value. Word of mouth remains the most powerful customer acquisition tool we have, and we are grateful for the trust our customers have placed in us. Repeat purchases and word of mouth have combined to make The Ridge Publishing Group a publishing competitor in the world of online bookselling.
By many measures, The Ridge Publishing Group came a long was in 2022:
- During our first year, in 2021, we uploaded and published 27 books – new books and backlist titles: 3 books in the Ethan Fox Books original series from the Ethan Fox Books franchise, 3 books from our AuthorsDoor Group imprint, and 21 books from our Rags to Riches Entertainment
- In 2022, we built our pipeline to 55 books, and published 2 books in the Ethan Fox Books original series from the Ethan Fox Books franchise.
- In 2023, we are scheduled to publish 25 books plus The Ethan Fox KidsStagram™ Magazine in the Ethan Fox Books original series from the Ethan Fox Books franchise, as well as 9 books from our AuthorsDoor Group
- in 2024, we are scheduled to publish the New Narrated Study Bible series for a total of 20 books from our Guardians of Biblical Truth Publishing Group
- In 2025, we will be launching our KidsStagram™ board game series from our Education in Games Publishing Group
Goals for 2023
We are still in the early stages of learning how to bring new value to our customers through internet commerce and merchandising. Our goal remains to continue to solidify and extend our brands and customer bases. This requires sustained investment in systems and infrastructure to support outstanding customer convenience, selection, and service while we grow. We are planning to add merchandise to our product offerings, and over time we believe that our products may be prudent investments. We also believe there are significant opportunities to better serve our customers overseas, such as audio books, international translation books, and better tailoring the customer experience. To be certain, a big part of the challenge for us will lie not in finding new ways to expand our business, but in prioritizing our investments.
We now know vastly more about online commerce than when The Ridge Publishing Group was founded in 2021, but we still have so much to learn. Though we are optimistic, we must remain vigilant and maintain a sense of urgency. The challenges and hurdles we will face to make our long term vision for The Ridge Publishing Group a reality are several: aggressive, capable, well-funded competition; considerable growth challenges and execution risk; the risks of product and geographic expansion; and the need for large continuing investments to meet an expanding market opportunity. However, as we’ve long said, online bookselling, and online commerce in general, should prove to be a very large market, and it’s likely that a number of companies will see significant benefit. We feel good about what we’ve done, and even more excited about what we want to do.
2022 was indeed an incredible year. We at The Ridge Publishing Group are grateful to our customers for their business and trust, to each other for our hard work, and to partners for their support and encouragement.
For further information on The Ridge Publishing Group, go to our website at www.RidgePublishingGroup.com.
About The Ridge Publishing Group
The Ridge Publishing Group is an up-and-coming American worldwide book, film and board game Company. It is setup to becoming one of the largest theology teaching resources in the world in terms of books, textbooks, documentaries, board games and card decks. The Ridge Publishing Group owns the trademarks and copyrights of the Guardians of Biblical Truth Publishing Group, Hoyle Theology Publishing Group, Documentaries in Print Publishing Group, and Education in Games Publishing Group. The Ridge Publishing Group also supports small press imprints; and owns the trademarks and copyrights of Ethan Fox Books, Rags to Riches Entertainment, and AuthorsDoor Group. The Company is headquartered in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho.
The Ridge Publishing Group’s list of sites:
Parent Website: https://www.RidgePublishingGroup.com and blog site https://www.PublisherAndHerWorld.com
Publisher Website: https://www.GuardiansofBiblicalTruth.com and blog site https://www.Jesus-Says.com
Author Website: https://www.LAMoeszinger.com and https://www.NewYouniversityChronicles.com site:
https://www.UrbanChroniclesPublishingHouse.com and blog site https://www.ManhattanChronicles.com
Bridge Website: https://www.AuthorsDoor.com and blog site https://www.AuthorsRedDoor.com
Entertainment Website: https://www.EthanFoxBooks.com and blog site https://www.KidsStagram.com
Press Contacts
press@RidgePublishingGroup.com
Trademarks
This communication contains trademarks, service marks, trade names and copyrights of The Ridge Publishing Group and its imprints, subsidiaries and other companies, which are the property of their respective owners.
Related Entries:
2021 CEO Annual Report
Related Topics:
Visit The Ridge Publishing Group’s, The Guardians of Biblical Truth Official Blog, Coffee with God! at www.Jesus-Says.com as you continue your walk with God.
