Beyond Borders: How Publishers are Navigating the Challenge of Diversifying Their Author Base

by Tracy Gardner

In an increasingly global research landscape, the need for academic publishers to reach more diverse author communities has never been more important. We hear this directly from our own clients, and it is often the topic of conversation at conferences and industry events. The author is crucially important to publishers, and it seems a significant challenge is how to tap into the wealth of knowledge and expertise beyond the core markets. How do you go about reaching and engaging with researchers and authors you have no prior relationship with at all?

At KGL Accucoms, we wanted to understand the key priorities and pain points for publishers as they expand into new regions. We asked some of our publishing contacts to share their views with us and we uncovered a wealth of insights—both around the hurdles they face and the opportunities they are keen to seize.

A Growing Appetite for Global Reach

The majority of publishers who responded to us are actively looking to diversify their author and reader base across multiple regions. South and Southeast Asia, East Asia, Latin America, and Europe are the priority regions for the people we spoke to. Notably, even established markets like North America remain part of the diversification strategy—highlighting that global reach is about deepening presence as much as expanding borders. After all, many publishers (particularly societies) know their core community, but as research becomes more interdisciplinary, there are related fields they want to engage with but are not sure how to approach.

The Roadblocks to Regional Growth

However, despite this enthusiasm and the desire to diversify, challenges persist.

The most commonly cited issue is a lack of visibility in target regions—publishers do not feel they are well known in the markets they want to reach.

Others challenges include:

• Difficulty identifying key authors and research leaders—how do you go about identifying the right person to contact and how do you make that approach.
• Competition from other publishers—publishing is hugely competitive, and everyone is chasing the same authors. How do you define your unique selling point and stand out from the crowd?
• Perceived journal prestige—with so many journals in the marketplace, how do you demonstrate authority, reliability, and reputation?
• Lack of regional marketing expertise—how do you even begin to market in a region you don’t understand, don’t speak the language, and have limited knowledge of business practices or relationships with customers and prospective customers?

This reflects a clear demand for both strategic market insight and local knowledge—core areas where Accucoms supports publishers every day.

Visibility Isn’t Enough—It’s About Connection

When asked how difficult it is to identify influential authors in new regions, many acknowledged a gap between editorial insight and marketing execution. As one respondent put it, “There is lots of expertise in the editorial boards, but translating that into actionable marketing is less developed.”

Tools like Web of Science offer valuable insights, but pricing for those tools remains a barrier. What’s needed is a combination of data, context, and on-the-ground expertise to turn that data into relationships.

Local Language Marketing: Still an Untapped Advantage

Not many publishers we talked to currently use local-language marketing to reach new author communities. Some have considered it, but they haven’t yet taken the leap. This leaves a significant opportunity for early movers. Tailoring content and campaigns to regional audiences in their native languages can dramatically improve engagement and trust. Whilst the language of research is often English, communicating with authors, libraries, and other stakeholders in their local languages shows respect and can move the conversation forward much more quickly. It shows you care about your customers enough to speak to them in their own language. And we know that in some markets, like Japan, unless you create marketing materials in Japanese, you are simply wasting your time—English is not widely used.

Promotion Strategies: A Mixed Bag

While email marketing and social media campaigns are the most common tactics for reaching authors, more localized approaches such as:

• Translated materials 
• Local partnerships 
• Regional workshops or webinars 

are far less frequently used—despite their proven value in building strong local author relationships. Accucoms can help with all of these strategies.

What Publishers Need: Intelligence, Access, and Impact

So, what would make it easier to attract and engage diverse authors? Publishers told us they’re looking for:

• Better market intelligence—not just knowing who to target, but why they would engage, what messages are going to resonate with those people
• Qualified contacts and institutional insight—who are the leading researchers and which institutions drive the most output?
• Targeted regional campaigns—strategic outreach that speaks to local needs and aspirations.

Our publishers said:

• We need access to those key authors/readers.
• Free webinars and editorial visits would help build trust.
• Better awareness, discovery, and perceived reputation.
• It would be useful to know the target institutions in the target regions—i.e., which institutions generally produce the most research and have the most high-profile authors. We don’t really have that kind of local/regional insight.
• Better market intelligence on the ‘hooks/themes’ that will attract submissions, qualified prospects list and author contact details.
• Market and customer insight—knowing the ‘why’ rather than the ‘how.’
• Targeted regional campaigns.
• We do have tools to help us with this—it is just knowing how to best to reach out to these people.

In short, publishers want smarter tools, better data, and local expertise to drive impact in the markets they care about most.

How KGL Accucoms Can Help

At KGL Accucoms, connecting global publishers with local author communities is what we do best. Whether you’re aiming to grow submissions in Southeast Asia, raise visibility in Latin America, or run local-language campaigns in East Asia, our team provides:

• Regional author engagement
• Market insight and campaign strategy
• Local-language outreach
• Institutional and author-level targeting

If you are ready to expand your author network and would like help in doing so, please get in touch. Accucoms.Marketing@kwglobal.com

KGL Accucoms specializes in global sales representation, marketing, telesales, and account management for clients ranging from large publishing houses to specialist society publishers. With a strong presence in key markets, Accucoms connects publishers with libraries and other information users to help expand their reach and impact.