About
Kensai International is a privately-held corporation with offices in the United States. Since 1997 we have advised publishers on how to improve their operations and software vendors on how to better market their products to publishers.
Edwin Fager is the president of Kensai International. Edwin has over twenty years of experience in book and magazine publishing. He served as the CFO of Brunner/Mazel Inc.; a publisher of professional and trade titles, (now owned by Talyor & Francis), the controller of Blackwell Publishing (now owed by John Wiley) and the senior accountant for the Whitney Communications Magazine Division.
Our projects have included software selection, software implementation, software design, corporate acquisitions, editorial strategy & acquisitions, business plan developments, operations reviews, forensic accounting, marketing strategy, digital publishing, financial systems implementations and temporary chief financial officer services.
The best way to learn about us is to let us tell you some stories.
A professional book publisher in New England hired us to train their staff in how to use their publishing software. During the training we noticed that they were selling professional titles to Amazon at a trade discount. By changing reducing the Amazon discount to that of a professional discount they increased their gross margin by over 10%.
A publisher in New York hired us to review their operations. During this review we noticed that postage charges from their fulfillment house were unusually high. Adoption copies were being mailed via Residential UPS. By changing the mailing method of adoption copies the publisher reduced their expenses by a five figure amount.
A medical publisher was using a hosted solution to manage their sales, accounts receivable and inventory. They wanted to move to a lower cost solution. We guided them through the evaluation process, assisted them in negotiating a lower price and then implemented the system over a weekend (at the same time that were having the carpet changed in their office). On Monday morning their customer service staffed verified the accounts receivable amounts and they starting processing orders in the new system by noon after a short training session. The software vendor told us later that this process normally takes three to five months.
An IT consulting firm that had been implementing a computer system for a publisher in Latin America for two years called us in to assist them. The project was over budget in time and money and the client was not happy. They had not gone live. After arriving at their site we reviewed the project and met with the publisher’s board. At the meeting we declared that we would have them live within two weeks. We had them live and processing orders in the new system in one week.
