Dec 17 2008
Economic Outlook: Partly Cloudy
- Yesterday, Macmillan laid off 64 people (approx. 4% of the workforce). The children's imprints will all be consolidated and the cuts will take place at every arm: Tor, the tony FSG, and St. Martin's Press.
- Whoever is left at FSG has been asked to cut back on the amount spent on acquisitions. Maybe it's time for literary imprints to take a look at my epublishing suggestion .
- Teleread.org and Mobileread.com, following our own discussion here , debate the fair price of ebooks. (Verdict: Something lower than the lowest print price primarily because there is no secondary market).
- Perseus Book Groups is suspending raises for 200, like Macmillan and Penguin.
But
- It appears from Bookscan that mass market genre sales for fantasy and romance are still strong. This comports with what I've heard within the industry and that is the mass market sections of even troubled publishers are making money. It's everyone else (the high advance authors?) that are causing problems and, probably, some of the financial waste.
- For those with cash, this is a boon time. Sourcebooks has bought Casablanca. And, Mundania Press LLC has purchased Awestruck.
Related posts:
Dec 18, 2008 @ 10:52:16
Ehm, Jane?
What happened to all the Publishing Deal posts? They seem to have all disappeared. Is that intentional? Hope not.
Dec 18, 2008 @ 12:19:50
@GrowlyCub Yes, it is intentional. I got an email from PM that I was in violation of my terms of agreement. I’ve read the agreement and don’t believe I am in violation, but I don’t have time right now to do the research on it and am going to have another lawyer take a look it before I decide what to do with those posts.
Dec 18, 2008 @ 12:40:40
Oh, that’s too bad. I’m sure I was not the only one who marked down names and titles for possible future purchase. Hopefully you can figure something out. If not, I’ll miss this feature.