Enthusiast book and magazine publisher Taunton Press—known mostly as an editorially-driven company—is ramping up its ad sales efforts. Taunton has hired former Ziff Davis Media group publisher and vice president Karl Elken to a newly-created vice president position to oversee sales efforts across the company’s five franchises: Fine Woodworking, Fine Gardening, Fine Cooking, Fine Homebuilding and Threads.

“This is an opportunity for Taunton to step up its efforts in ad sales and bring more focus to our existing customers,” Taunton’s senior vice president and group publisher Paul Spring tells FOLIO:. “We want to finely tune—both on the publishing side and particularly on the Web side—that message to customers who may not be running with us now, in the best integrated, professional fashion.”

As a senior vice president, Elken joins Taunton’s management team and will oversee the company’s sales managers and reps, who previously reported to the franchise publishers. This will free the franchise publishers to concentrate more on marketing their individual brands, Spring says.

“Companies tend to make a hire like this when the system is broken. That is not that case here at all,” Spring explains. “In these times it’s good to take market share, and it’s a great time to make sure that you’re just as finely tuned as you can be in all aspects of your business. By and large we are on track for our franchises.”

The hiring aside, Spring declined to comment on how exactly the company is hoping to ramp up its ad sales efforts. “Just as we make sure we are up-to-date and professional on the editorial side we do the same on the advertising side,” he says. “We’re taking advertising to the next level.”