While Business Development is not necessarily one of the first departments that comes to mind when thinking of careers in the publishing industry, it is an area of increasing importance in light of the many startups and platforms that are now part of the digital landscape. The term “Business Development” or, more commonly, “biz dev” is broad but encompasses many things: creating and maintaining relationships with vendors and potential partners, finding new revenue streams, and pitching business to new clients, in addition to sometimes maintaining marketing/sales channels.

So what exactly does a business development position and department look like? How does the biz dev professional interact with publishing colleagues on the one hand, and new vendors on the other, and what metrics do they use to gauge success? We talked to people who work in several different publishing business development capacities to explore these questions.

Though definitions and workflows vary, everyone agrees that business development revolves around relationships and connections with other companies. “The definition for business development used by some is ‘the creation of long-term value for an organization,’ so this generally means working with people with whom you don’t currently have a business relationship,” explains Ted Hill, President of THA Consulting. “Any time I meet people I’m thinking about how I can work with them even if it’s not the reason we were introduced,” says Steve Sandonato, VP of Business Development & Strategy at Time Home Entertainment Inc. “You need to always think outside the traditional business models to create a spark of a new idea. If the spark of the idea is thought of without a specific partner in mind you need to identify and contact companies that can help you realize that idea.”

When asked how they view biz dev in publishing, almost everyone agreed that the definition has to be tweaked. “Positions in biz dev didn’t exist until the mid-90s. It’s a digital, new economy term,” says HarperCollins’ Director of Digital Business Development, Adam Silverman. “At HarperCollins, biz dev is a combination of strategy, business analysis, and legal—finding new channels and new partners to sell ebooks. Biz dev then stays involved to oversee any new terms or territories with new channels.” If this sounds familiar, it might be because “business development is often just a fancy way of saying ‘sales,’” explains Doug Stambaugh, VP, Global eBook Market Development and Strategy at Simon & Schuster Digital. For Kate Travers, Director of Digital Business Development at Workman, digital means direct sales, but also marketing: “creating verticals around a brand and closer relationships to consumers,” she explains.

As for whom publishers are building relationships with, companies range from startups to known industry resources. “The role of business development for me is about creating new relationships and partnerships as well as expanding and leveraging existing ones,” says Peter Balis, Director of Digital Business Development at Wiley. “New partners include companies like Inkling and Bookshout and we have expanded our partnerships recently with Apple and O’Reilly.” Adam Silverman also mentioned Inkling in particular, talking about how they offer “an evolving model on the fly” that has been changing with the market. Many of the industry professionals we talked to also spoke about the importance of the library and elearning community in discovering new frontiers and business opportunities.

While pitching on behalf of the publisher is a common approach, business development professionals often find themselves on the other side of the table. “There’s a lot of capital out there looking for opportunities,” says Doug Stambaugh. “There’s an influx of people from outside perspectives coming into publishing – content development, start ups, biz dev etc.” Consultant Joe Wikert agrees, “This is the heart of innovation and what excites me most about the radical changes we’re seeing in the content industry. Finding new ways to build content, as well as distribute it, is what startups are focusing on. Some of this biz dev happens in the traditional publishing house but it’s the core of the startup community.” Still, Krista Carnes, Business Development Director, Blissful Media Group, which works with publishers, advises against being too much of a maverick: “One of the most important attitudes in media business development is keeping an eye on what doesn’t apply to your particular area of the business today. You don’t necessarily need to be the one who pioneers that approach in your corner, but you should know what it is when it arrives.”

Much of how business development positions function is tied into the size and scope of the company. “Handling biz dev in a company with legacy is very different from one in which there is no legacy,” says Adam Silverman. “At a larger company people are developing new channels and piecing them together with existing channels. At a new company, it’s good for someone in biz dev to have entrepreneurial and sales experience and be able to evangelize—make it up as you go along.” The size of the company also affects what resources are available and how agile a biz dev team can be; biz dev at Sesame Workshop, for example, has fewer resources but also more flexibility due to its smaller non-traditional, non-profit status. “We tend to have fewer resources than a traditional publisher,” says Jennifer Wendell, Manager of Business Development at Sesame Workshop. “However, for a small team, we have been able to develop a very strong digital program by pursuing both direct distribution as well as third-party distribution through our print publishers and other distributors.”

Whether large or small, it is important for companies to not only forge new relationships but to also use metrics to measure their success. For the execs we talked to, evaluation can come in two forms: revenue and engagement. “For traditional biz dev, sales (in terms of dollars or units) need to be established,” says Steve Sandonato. “They should be scalable and you need to be able to replicate in order to optimize. This is really important and sometimes is forgotten. If I have a one-time fantastic hit but I can’t replicate it, the company could be left with a large hole to fill in the next year.” At Wiley, Peter Balis says there is “a global target based on percentage increase of revenue year-over-year with one target for trade, STM, worldwide, etc.”

But numbers alone aren’t the only way of determining success: “The broadest measure of success usually comes in the form of engagement,” says Ted Hill. “How many companies have you connected with? Has the discussion progressed the sales process? If not, what have you learned that will help you move the business forward?” In addition to evaluating client/partner satisfaction, customer satisfaction is also integral. “On a corporate level, we of course look at revenue and downloads to measure success, but we also look at the impact our programs are having on our target audience,” insists Jennifer Wendell. “To this end we do a lot of testing and focus group research to ensure that our products support our mission and that we’re providing a quality experience in a safe and educative environment.” Steve Sandonato adds that successful biz dev can infiltrate all areas of a company: “In this age of digital publishing, our goals for ebooks sales are less about sales units but more about establishing efficient workflow, testing new concepts and formats, locking in promotions that we use to gauge promotional effect, and pushing the tech envelope to be the first out of the gate with a new interface.”

While there is no set approach, biz dev roles within this sector will continue to change as the market does. In fact, they already have. “I think more publishers are willing to take on more small risks than they were, say, 10 years ago,” says Joe Wikert. “Back then ebooks were just a prediction of the future whereas today they represent 20-30% of a publisher’s revenue. Publishers are also experiencing change at the fastest rate in recent history, so they know they can’t sit on the sidelines for very long.” After all, Peter Balis explains, it’s business development’s job to “hold a mirror up to the company and whatever it is looking for, whatever its world view is, that is biz dev. Biz Dev is just a container for whatever you decide to put inside of it.”

(Additional reporting gathered by Lorraine Shanley and Elisabeth Watson.)

This article was written for the e-program distributed to participants of Publishers Launch BEA 2013, which will be held at the Javits Center on Wednesday, May 29. Register online here or contact Jess Johns by email.