Turning the Publisher RFP into a Plan for Strategic Growth

By Kevin Lomangino, Director, KGL Consulting

When it’s time to renegotiate or renew a publishing contract, societies are understandably eager to learn what terms their publisher (or a new publisher) will offer and how this may change their financial outlook in the next contract term.

But before focusing attention externally on soliciting the best offer (whether from your current partner or as part of a competitive RFP), we recommend taking an intentional internal look at your financial and operational performance as well as your strategic priorities for the publishing program.

In our experience, the best first step in preparing for the next contract term is to pause and ask:

“Are we building the publishing program we need for the future, or just continuing the one we’ve always had? What should we be doing differently to ensure that our journals continue to advance our mission throughout the next contract term?”

This is an opportunity to explore how your journals will continue to serve your community in a publishing environment that’s shifting rapidly due to major ruptures in the global research landscape, business models based largely on growing published article volume, and technological disruption impacting every part of the publishing cycle.

Handled effectively, such an assessment can help position your program for continued growth and impact during the next contract term and beyond.

Please note: this post discusses options for societies who are already under contract with a publishing partner. However, the strategic assessment we recommend can be adapted for any society with a publishing program and may be especially useful for self-published societies who are not contemplating a publisher partnership. 

Strategic inflection point

Publisher contracts are long-term commitments. If you’re entering or renewing one now, it will need to carry your organization through years of continued evolution in the industry – including new developments in AI, increased automation of publishing services, and likely business model shifts that we can’t yet foresee. To understand whether a publisher can provide the right mix of vision, strategy, and services to sustain your publications through this turmoil, it is important to first understand how your publications are performing now and what they will need to succeed in the years ahead.

Starting with a historical financial assessment, we work collaboratively with our society clients to understand the full landscape of their publishing revenues and costs—subscription income, open access fees, commercial sales, licensing arrangements, and operational expenditures. We calculate your return on sales and estimate your publisher’s profit margin to get a sense of how your financial terms compare with your peers across the industry. This benchmarking informs our negotiating strategy and can help determine whether it is advisable to issue an RFP or negotiate exclusively with the incumbent.

We then take a focused look at key performance indicators such as submission and publication trends, editorial turnaround times, acceptance rates, citations, and author satisfaction metrics. This analysis highlights both areas of strength and opportunities to optimize, forming a data-driven foundation for evaluating whether your current partner—and your current model—are delivering on your mission.

Leveraging organizational wisdom

We also recommend a series of interviews with key journal stakeholders including Board members and EICs, members of the publications committee, society publications staff, and potentially experienced Associate Editors and frequent authors. Recognizing that the best ideas and strategies often come from those working on your publications day to day, these interviews explore critical questions such as:

• Are our current editorial policies and processes serving authors and editors well?
• Where are there opportunities to attract and publish more quality content?
• What are our existing (and emerging) competitors up to and what can we learn from them?
• What do we need from our next publishing partner to expand the reach and impact of our program?

Armed with financial data and your stakeholder insights to guide our analysis, we’re almost always better positioned to recommend a strong path forward for our clients – irrespective of which publisher they ultimately choose to partner with. This assessment also helps clarify the key strategic initiatives needed for the journals to succeed. Sharing an outline of this plan with potential publishers helps create a compelling narrative around your program and positions you as an active and collaborative partner. This increases the likelihood of publishers bidding and offering attractive terms.

Figure 1. Workflow for a comprehensive strategic assessment ahead of contract renewal or RFP.

No cookie-cutter solutions

There are nuances to consider, of course. Depending on when your contract expires, you may not have sufficient time to conduct a thorough retrospective review. Or you may not have the budget to allow for consultant-facilitated interviews. Alternately, you may already have a strong, data-informed strategy for your program that we can use to guide the publisher selection process.

No matter the situation, our team of consultants is very adept at crafting project plans that fit within the available window and are feasible with your resources. In our 25 years of experience, we’ve handled hundreds of contract negotiations for clients of all sizes – including those with large multi-journal portfolios and small individual titles. Our client list speaks to the breadth of our work serving a range of customers – almost all of whom have chosen to work with our consulting group on multiple occasions.

It’s later than you think

Time is often the limiting factor in negotiating a publisher contract with the most favorable possible terms. As your runway shortens, your opportunity to explore alternative publisher options shrinks  — leading to reduced negotiating leverage and less attractive terms. When you consider that an ideal publisher transition requires 9 to 12 months and contract negotiation alone can easily take 6 months or more, having an 18- month runway isn’t quite as comfortable as it sounds.

If your contract expires at the end of 2026, we recommend getting started immediately to explore your options. A successful process takes not just time but the maintenance of competitive pressure. If publishers know that you have insufficient time to transition to a competitor, they may be less inclined to put forth their best possible offer and less flexible on accommodating changes to their proposed contract terms.

If your contract expires at the end of 2027, this is the ideal window to begin strategic planning for your next contract. With more than two years of lead time, you can conduct a thoughtful review of your current performance, solicit feedback from internal stakeholders, and articulate a forward-looking vision that reflects your goals for the next publishing term. All at a pace that is comfortable for you and your team.

 Let’s talk about the future you want to build

Navigating a publisher contract renewal or RFP is too high-stakes to approach without expert support. With the right consulting partner, you gain not only a trusted advisor but also an informed advocate—someone who understands the nuances of today’s publishing ecosystem, knows how publishers think, and can help you ask the right questions and negotiate with confidence.

We’ll meet you where you are, adapt to your timeline and resources, and bring the deep expertise and market perspective needed to guide one of your organization’s most important business relationships. Our clients consistently tell us that our support paid for itself many times over—whether through stronger contract terms, increased revenue opportunities, or avoiding costly missteps.

If you’re preparing for renewal or contemplating a change, now is the time to engage a partner who can help you secure the brightest possible future for your publications.

To find out KGL Consulting can help you reach your objectives, contact us at info@kwglobal.com.