Crown Publications (Pty) Ltd, the publisher of eight trade publications and in operation for 39 years, has announced management changes. Wilhelm du Plessis has been promoted to publisher while Karen Grant, who has been the publisher since 2016, will remain as the managing director and focus on custom publishing.
“This is an exciting time for Crown Publications,” says Grant. “Wilhelm is a publisher at heart and has a number of plans to take Crown to the next level. I look forward to watching its development under his guidance.”
Du Plessis, who started in academia, has been in the publishing industry since 2001 and has won various prizes for journalism. In addition to the three magazines he edits, he has been the assistant publisher at Crown since 2017.
One of the magazines he has been editing since 2009 is Construction World. “Despite the challenges of the construction industry for most of the past decade, I have managed to build this title into a highly regarded brand, which is one of the reasons it is still around. I want to replicate this with all of Crown’s titles - but do much more,” he says.
“The publishing industry requires one to pivot constantly. I want to leverage Crown’s respected trade magazines and make of these fully fledged brands – not just magazines with an online presence. This is not enough in the current context. It will need to involve innovative content strategies and multi-channel platforms that will unlock new advertising opportunities. Crown’s magazines exist because they are vehicles for advertisers to reach a specific and curated audience as these are the people that will buy the products or services being showcased. This vehicle must be attractive to advertisers and make marketing sense. At the same time this ‘vehicle’ must be innovative, modern, respected and interesting,” says Du Plessis.
Even though numerous publishers have chosen to be online only, especially since the Covid epidemic, Crown Publications still prints and augments this with a healthy electronic circulation that is not limited by geographical location.
“We are Audit Bureau of Circulation audited, and this is one of our unique selling points. It is still the only way that proves legally and transparently that a circulation figure (that includes both print and electronic copies), is what is claimed,” says Du Plessis. “Print will remain an important part of these brands, but we will also expand our digital offering.”
He will remain the editor of Construction World and Modern Quarrying and the managing editor of Capital Equipment News and will officially take over as publisher on 1 February.
Crown Publications publishes African Fusion, Capital Equipment News, Construction World, Electricity + Control, MechChem Africa, Modern Mining, Modern Quarrying and Sparks Electrical News.
