Mariela Hristova on...

Management: "If a person is not motivated, it reflects on the whole project."
"No one is great without all the people with whom he works."
"I'm very proud that we published Managing Talented People. It's not possible to say come at 8am and think creative ideas till 5pm. We discuss, then we break apart to think. We work from home. This works for us; it does not work for everyone."
"'Koi za kakvoto e uchil' ('Each person for what he has learnt.') – I'm not going to tell the artist how to draw, the printer how to print. I put my confidence in them and we talk about what we need to do; and that's it."

Wine: "It's so beautiful to find a person with whom you  can drink a glass and a half of wine."
"My work is my passion, but what I really love is wine. I've decided to study wine production starting next year."

Frustration: "I go running. I run 15km in 77 minutes regularly."

The future: "It's not only the right now that is important."
"It's not only about earning quick money. You have to think about what you'll be in 170 years."

Life: "I believe in wholesome comforts."
"I take parts of everything, and make it logical."

It only follows that what she does is done in an effort to reach the highest standards, in both work and leisure.

The first years after she founded AMAT-AH in 1999 were hard, she said, hard to find agents, hard to find people to put in a good word for her and help her get known on the market, hard to find loyal clients. But she persisted, and built her team, and for the past four or five years, due to continued relationships with, for example, the same distributors or the same printers, things have stabilised. Human resources have been freed up, including Hristova as well – it’s no longer necessary to go looking for a certain type of paper for the book covers or a reliable delivery company.

As she proudly put it, in the past year, the business has become “emancipated”, meaning that if she, for some reason, is not present, the company will not fall into ruination.

“I’m not the big boss,” she said, drinking a cappuccino at Motto one Monday afternoon. “Things that are dictated do not work. It’s about confidence.”

Hristova went on to explain that relations with people are one of the most vital aspects of business. According to her, everything must be done with care and respect towards people. This ranges from saying thank you to people  –  “and if you do, these people are ready to be helpful” – to the quality of the books AMAT-AH publishes, to how she interacts and manages colleagues.

It was from her father, who, as the leader of a socialist organisation was brought into contact with people of various nationalities, that Hristova got her first lessons in business. She said that when she was a child, he would take her to his meetings, where she could observe and take in his example of how to respect people. She credits him with her success today, and christened her publishing house after him: his initials were AH.

“The best manager that I have known was my dad,” she said. From him she learned that “in business, a person must be able to speak the language of the people with whom he is in contact. I do business in one way with English people and in a very different way with Turkish people, and in yet another way with Greek people.”
Hristova herself speaks Hindi, Urdu, English, French, German, Greek and Russian, and understands Turkish.

“I am very thankful for languages, because it provides the mentality for understanding. You cannot know a culture if you do not speak its language,” she said to The Sofia Echo.

It frustrates her that many foreign managers do not make efforts to learn Bulgarian, because this not only can make the person seem haughty, but also inhibits the understanding of the Bulgarian professional mentality.

In addition to undertaking to speak the language of her business contact, Hristova also makes it a priority to blend in with the local culture when she is abroad. There have been a couple incidents that led her to this decision – including the new lavender suit that she almost brought with her to Milano, only to, the night before flying, read an etiquette book and find that in Italy, lavender is a tint of mourning.

This attention to style also manifests itself in her dealings with contacts in Bulgaria. On the day of our interview, she was wearing more casual attire, there was colour, because later in the afternoon, she had a meeting with design artists, who would present seven or eight conceptions for an upcoming book. If she’s meeting an agent, however, it’s dark suit and heels.

Hristova indicated that  respect is the most important in business for her. AMAT-AH’s titles, which include translations of books in the business field like Postsocialist Pathways: Transforming Politics and Property in East Central Europe, by David Stark and Laszlo Bruszt and How to Do a Great Job... and Go Home on Time, by Fergus O’Connell, and books on Balkan history, are all published “with care”, because this is how respect is shown towards people.

“People here live hard. Books are expensive. But it must be this way if we want to sell quality projects. I can cut costs, but the quality is less. When a book costs more, I can be assured that the product is quality. This is respect towards the person who will give money for the book.” Postsocialist Pathways, a paperback of 240 pages including all legal notices, costs 14 leva. But its font is clear and the spine does not crack when the book is opened.

This is where competition could come in, when the books that AMAT-AH offers are more expensive than most others published on the Bulgarian market. But Hristova said that competition among publishing houses is not the same as competition, say, in the restauration business. “There are no limits to how many books a person can read,” she said.  If you have a restaurant and I have a restaurant; we’re in competition: so-and-so cannot come to my restaurant for dinner and then to yours for dinner in one night. But when people read, there is no limit. It’s a business of intelligence and good attitudes.”

In fact, it was peers in the publishing industry that helped Hristova get started back eight years ago.

With passion, she told the story of a woman, the matriarch of a great Greek publishing company that has been around for more than 170 years, that shared a few wise words with her a few years back. She said: “You can continue the business for 170 years if you’re honest, if you’re a good worker. You can be the largest Bulgarian publishing house – just remember that the publication business is something that is built slowly.”

And Hristova has confidence in this.

This co-incides with her education, which, among other degrees, included graduating from Sofia’s first English-language high school, a bachelor’s degree in journalism and mass communications, a master’s  in Indology, both from Sofia University, more university and another degree earned in Greece, in marketing and sales techniques, and then post-graduate work in foreign trade and international relations from the Economic University in Sofia.

The confidence that she could succeed in whatever she wanted came along with graduating with top marks from the English-language high school, one of the most elite and competitive in the country.

And because she already knew Russian and English, the next logical step seemed something a bit farther away, hence India.

The Eastern way of looking at the world influences still today how Hristova takes on life. “Knowing the East, you can have some insight for your future. It gives a longer view of things – it’s not only the right now that is important.”

Which gives her confidence that what the Greek woman said could become reality, eventually.

Hristova is not in a rush.

In addition to books, she cherishes another aspect of the greatness of living: wine. “My work is my passion,” she said, “but what I really love is wine.” Particularly Bordeaux. And particularly with someone she values.

“It’s good to have a taste for quality things in life. I’m a happy person, and I keep on meeting good people. Quality is a characteristic of life.”

Even this relates to how she does business. Hristova noted that foreigners can often mistake Bulgarians’ familiarity with friendship. “I’m friendly with clients, but I’m not their friend. The border is very thin. About wine, I can talk to anyone. But to drink wine with someone indicates something closer.”

To an outsider, it may seem that someone like Hristova could soar professionally if she left Bulgaria. On the contrary; this suggestion is best not made. She explained that the successful people of her generation are here in Bulgaria because they want to be, because they love their country and want to do good things for it.

“We’re not here because we did not have a choice,” she said. “We’re here because we want to be here. We are not potential immigrants. I can drink Champagne here, or I can drink it in Paris. We’re making business happen.”

And the business that AMAT-AH does, in addition to its business and Balkan history titles, includes as of recently a Phare project tender for cross-border co-operation for sustainable tourism development with Macedonia. 

“Even though we are a small business,” she said, “we have to be responsible. Many of our clients are from the international environmental sphere. If you are responsible in your personal life, in your business, you have to be responsible towards the environment. It’s not about earning quick money, it’s about what you will be in 170 years.”

AMAT-AH was founded as a private, independent Bulgarian publishing company in 1999. It specialises in two main spheres of activities: publishing books for the market, mainly business and Balkan history titles, and production – creative design, pre-print and printing – of commissioned reports and materials for different international, government and private institutions.

Having won the reputation of a loyal local partner to some of the largest publishers worldwide, AMAT-AH time and again is offered the Bulgarian-language options to publish current English-language business titles. Some of books that the company's Business Series includes are Brilliant Manager, The Leadership Manual, Managing Talented People, and Small Business, Big Profit!

Independence allows AMAT-AH to choose and publish only quality books that represent different points of view and, sometimes, disregard the taste of the market. Among its notable releases are the two-volume edition of The History of the Balkans by the American Balkanist Barbara Jelavich, and Postsocialist Pathways: Transforming Politics and Property in East Central Europe by David Stark and Laszlo Bruszt.

The company sells its books through a network of a dozen large wholesalers and a number of smaller ones. It was recently approached by some multinational companies operating in Bulgaria that were interested in buying the whole print run of a specific business title for their managers and employees.

As to the second sphere of AMAT-AH's activities – commissioned reports – almost all of its business comes via reference. In mid-September, the company won a Phare project tender for cross-border (with Macedonia) co-operation for sustainable tourism development.

Mirela Hristova has been managing director of the company since its beginning. She is convinced that the people who comprise its vast network of professional, positive, talented workers who collaborate in dynamic, virtual teams have made the publishing house what it is. Depending on the current projects, it engages from four to 10 people.