Culture and Commerce: Corporate Publishing at ECW Press

This report analyzes the corporate publishing practices at ECW Press, a Canadian independent publisher in Toronto, Ontario. The first section of this report describes ECW’s history in corporate publishing, something the company has been involved with since it began in 1974. It also looks at how the growing popularity of content marketing could lead to more opportunities for ECW to leverage the authority of print. The second section explores how ECW finds these corporate projects, delves into the services the company offers, and examines the financial considerations and arrangements that guide them. The third section uses a corporate project completed by ECW as a case study, demonstrating how following a standard set of simple processes can radically benefit both the publisher and the client. The final section of the report looks at the profitability of ECW’s corporate projects and suggests possible refinements to the publishing process.