Massive "reorganizations" and layoffs led to yesterday being termed Black Wednesday. And the news isn't any better today. Publishers are seriously hurting, and so are the people who work in the industry. Books used to be called "recession-proof," but that's been consistently proven wrong this past decade. Should we care that a lot of people don't buy books anymore?

And then I saw that the 9-year-old kid who wrote a book about talking to girls was on the Today Show promoting his book and I was thinking, Who would buy this shit? Not just end consumers; what editor at HarperCollins really thought this was a good idea and snapped it up? Maybe the industry deserves to be in the state it's in if someone thinks that's a winner.

I heard an npr podcast about problems in the publishing industry about 2 weeks ago.

Apparently, they're under so much pressure to get product out that they can't possibly quality or fact check everything. So there's alot of editorial endorsements of material that editors never actually read.

I was scary



I'm interested in obtaining the new Kindle 2.0 when it's released next year.

it's not just books, it's magazines, newspapers and anything else printed.


trust me it's scary

Imago said:

kinda like the james frey thing

ehuffnsd said:

it really is. books and movies are the traditional escapist entertainment for tough times. .. .

Layoffs at Random House, Simon & Schuster



By HILLEL ITALIE, AP National Writer Hillel Italie, Ap National Writer – Wed Dec 3, 5:39 pm ET
This photo released by Random House shows CEO Markus Dohle. Random House, under AP – This photo released by Random House shows CEO Markus Dohle. Random House, under the leadership of Dohle, …

NEW YORK – The economy has crashed down on an industry once believed immune from the worst — book publishing — with consolidation at Random House Inc., and layoffs at Simon & Schuster and Thomas Nelson Publishers.

"Yes, Virginia, book publishing is NOT recession proof," said Patricia Schroeder, president and chief executive officer of the Association of American Publishers. "It's sad day."

At Random House, the country's largest general trade publisher, the man who helped give the world "The Da Vinci Code" is in talks for a new position, while the publisher of Danielle Steel and other brand-name authors is leaving altogether.

Stephen Rubin, who released Dan Brown's blockbuster thriller in 2003, is negotiating for a different job after Random House eliminated his position as president and publisher of the Doubleday Publishing Group. Bantam Dell head Irwyn Applebaum, whose many authors have included Steel, Dean Koontz and Louis L'Amour, is departing, effective immediately.

Random House, under the leadership of chief executive officer Markus Dohle, announced the changes Wednesday as part of a "new publishing structure" that will "maximize our growth potential in these challenging economic times and beyond."

Spokeswoman Carol Schneider would not say whether Applebaum, 54, was leaving voluntarily; Applebaum and Rubin, 67, have more than 40 years of combined experience in publishing. She said that layoffs are possible as the company's many imprints and divisions are shifted and split up.

"There may be difficult decisions to make and if layoffs are necessary they will be done as fairly and as quickly as possible," she said.

Simon & Schuster has been helped by President-elect Barack Obama's embrace of Doris Kearns Goodwin's "Team of Rivals," but not enough to save some 35 positions, about 2 percent of the staff. CEO Carolyn Reidy said in a company memo Wednesday that "today's action is an unavoidable acknowledgment of the current book-selling marketplace and what may very well be a prolonged period of economic instability."

Reidy added that "the entire publishing industry is coping with these truly difficult circumstances."

On Tuesday, a top executive at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt resigned as the publisher faces a credit squeeze and possible sale. Meanwhile, the head of Thomas Nelson Publishers, a Nashville, Tenn.-based company that releases religious books, announced that about 10 percent of the staff, "54 of our friends and co-workers," had lost their jobs.

"This will affect nearly every department in our company," CEO Thomas S. Hyatt wrote on his blog, http://www.michaelhyatt.com.

An overhaul has been expected at Random House ever since Dohle was hired last spring by parent company Bertelsmann AG, a German-based conglomerate, and began a planned months-long review of the publisher.

Last month, Random House said it would freeze pensions for current employees and eliminate them for new hires.

Under the new alignment, Random House will reduce the number of its principal divisions from five to three: The Random House Publishing Group, the longtime home to E.L. Doctorow and Maya Angelou; the Knopf Publishing Group, a literary institution that includes Toni Morrison and John Updike; and the Crown Publishing Group, known for such political authors as Obama and Ann Coulter.

Applebaum's Bantam Dell Publishing Group and Rubin's Doubleday Publishing Group will be dispersed among the three divisions. Bantam has long been in trouble as sales for mass market paperbacks dropped, while Doubleday has been hurt by the absence of Brown's long-awaited follow-up to "The Da Vinci Code" and by disappointing sales for a highly publicized debut novel, Andrew Davidson's "The Gargoyle."

Dohle said Wednesday that he is hoping to "create a new role" for Rubin at Random House, working directly with the CEO.

"As you know, Steve has successfully led Doubleday for almost two decades and is universally respected and admired throughout the industry for both his publishing expertise and management skills," Dohle said in a company memo.

Rubin, through a spokesman, declined to comment Wednesday.

Applebaum said in a statement he had been "honored to work with a long-standing team of extraordinarily skilled colleagues at Bantam Dell who, book by book, year after year, consistently have brought to the marketplace more top-level best-sellers than any other group of Random House."

Asked if he had been offered another position at Random House, Applebaum declined to comment.

Dohle is retaining at least one Random House tradition — allowing the divisions to bid against each other for books, a practice far more welcomed by authors and agents than by those worried about expenses.

"I want to stress the fact that all the imprints of Random House will retain their distinct editorial identities," Dohle said Wednesday. "These imprints and all of you who support them are the creative core of our business and essential to our success."

Also, Wednesday, The New York Times announced its 10 best books for 2008. Nine of them, including Toni Morrison's "A Mercy" and Jhumpa Lahiri's "Unaccustomed Earth," were published by Random House Inc.

(This version CORRECTS Goodwin's middle name to Kearns, sted Kearn.)

yup, here it's mainly newspapers and magazines that are laying off people. Cutting down as much as 50% of the workforce ...

I think I'm just too dumb to understand that.

BlueZebra said:

the internets

business that in the past depended on print to get the word out now can e-blast, go to various websites, and the like.

it's getting harder and harder...

My son is a journalist, and works as a writer for our local paper in town. Yesterday the paper laid off 17 people! Thank god, my son was spared.
I feel sorry for the ones let go, just before the holidays too!

PaisleyPark5083 said:

wow , but they will all find something. new change i hope 2 come on all fronts.

glad ur son's position is secure.

missmad said:

Thanks, me too! Nothing like waking up each morning with a cup of coffee and opening my paper to read a front page story my "baby boy" wrote.

Efan said:

Parents, teachers, counselors, psychologists, social workers, mentors, and all kinds of other child advocates. The book definitely has its place. Nothing wrong with teaching heterosexuality before the age of 10, is there?

Snap said:

The book is sex eduction for 9-year-olds?

PaisleyPark5083 said:

i feel his pain i work for a newsmagaizne... it's tough here.

This is the very tripe they helped push.

maybe they should get back to producing more small $7.99 paperbacks instead of the general shift to the larger $15 ones.

I remember reading somewhere that the number of books published in a given year in the USA is 675,000, of which only 50,000 are published by actual publishing houses, and of that 50,000 only 5% actually recoup the money spent to print the editions while a small sliver of that is considered to make money for the publishing houses. Most of the books published that are actually printed by the publishing houses are either academic journals, technical and trade publications, and things like textbooks, most of which only cater to small specific audiences. The books which you see being sold at Barnes and Noble and Borders represent the titles which actually make money for the publishing houses. Even then, about 70% of those titles make a pittance while 25% represent steady sales (romance novels, cookbooks, health-related titles, children's books, religious books) while the remaining 5% represent the true blockbusters (Stephen King, John Grisham, superstar autobiographies like Barack Obama, the Harry Potter series, the New York Times bestseller list, Oprah's Book Club). So it truly is the major blockbusters which subsidize all of the other books the publishing house prints out.

PaisleyPark5083 said:

awwwww, im sure it brings smiles and more.