Edwards Brothers is a fourth-generation publishing company founded in 1893. The company has survived the Great Depression and many technological advances that have changed the way books are made. For decades, it has specialized in what’s called “short-run” publishing – the average number of books it prints is approximately 2,500.

Edwards Brothers has printed books ranging from a large-type version of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and from service manuals for Volkswagen and BMW to elementary school classroom workbooks. Since the 1950s, the company’s annual sales have increased almost every year. Since 1997, their annual sales have increased from $67.6 million to $81 million for the fiscal year.

The company employs about 450 at its 200,000-square-foot headquarters and printing plant in Ann Arbor and a total of more than 700 nationally. Edwards Brothers has survived because they’ve stuck to their core principals: resisting the temptation to grow too fast, and worked hard to foster employee loyalty by sharing financial information and performance data with its employees, and sharing profits with them twice a year. The company remains well-positioned to survive because no customer accounts for more than 8% of the sales.

Tags: book publishing

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