11th April 2006
IPI's Korean Connection

On April 4, the staff of Independent Publishers International (IPI) welcomed a special visitor to our Tokyo office. Ms. Dian Lee, Marketing Consultant from South Korean publisher Compass Publishing, on her first trip to Japan, visited IPI to discuss various issues related to the sales and marketing of Compass products in the Japanese market.

Compass Publishing, already well established in its native Korea, has also captured a slice of the ELT market in other Asian countries including Taiwan and Thailand, as well as here in Japan, and is currently developing a US-based warehouse as part of its expansion to other regions of the world. Over the last few years, IPI has invested considerable time and effort to promoting Compass products in Japan, and these efforts have certainly started to pay off with continually high sales of titles such as the "Songbirds" collection of songs for children, bestselling TOEIC preparation titles "Starter TOEIC" and "TOEIC Analyst," the new children's phonics course "Sounds Fun!" and business titles including bestseller "Communicating in Business English."

During her visit, Ms. Lee confirmed that IPI's sales for the first three months this year have already exceeded sales for the same time period in 2005 by more than three times. This is due mainly to the publication of new editions of "Starter TOEIC" and "TOEIC Analyst," which are among the first ELT materials to address the new TOEIC format, and are distributed in Japan exclusively by IPI.

Ms. Lee expressed her desire to cooperate with IPI in developing workshops on Compass products for presentation at ELT events such as the JALT annual conference and the Tokyo English Language Book Fair. She also introduced a brand new series that is being published for the new TOEFL iBT (Internet-based test). The 3-level series will complement IPI's exisiting advanced level TOEFL iBT course, "Delta's Key to the Next Generation TOEFL Test," and will be a great addition to our already superb range of test preparation materials for TOEFL, TOEIC, IELTS, KET, PET and others.

SESJ and SLS curriculum developers interested in finding out more about the new Compass TOEFL iBT series should contact IPI directly. The first two levels are available now. The upper level is scheduled for publication by the end of May.

Craig Larsen
Managing Director, IPI