“Black Wednesday” strikes book publishing.
Ask not for whom these bells toll . . .
This seems germane to my previous post comparing the print media of the early 16th century to the social media of today, but since I’m wading through the fog of a sinus infection, I’ll ask you to sort out the connections without me for the moment.
In any event, multiple major publishers — including Random House, Simon & Schuster, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt,* and others — announced staff cuts yesterday. The book business is hurting as much as any of the other “old” media are right now.
Andrew Wheeler, who’s been in the book business for 20+ years, has been collecting details of the various layoffs here:
A Merry Christmas for Book Publishing
(Thanks to John Scalzi for the link.) One publishing CEO’s perspective comes from Michael Hyatt of Thomas Nelson, the big religious publisher in Nashville:
Today, was a very difficult day at Thomas Nelson. We informed fifty-four of our friends and co-workers (about 10% of our workforce) that we have eliminated their jobs, effective this Friday. This will affect nearly every department in our company.
What do you think the future holds for the book business?
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* Separate from any of these announcements, I know folks who have been laid off recently from Harcourt’s Austin branch.
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Photo by chefranden.
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As a bookseller, having been eliminated from the retail side of the book industry in April 2008, as our particular store sales continued to slide from a high of $15m in 1999 down to $9.2m in 2007, I’d have to say that the “going green” movement for eliminating the production of books to cover just exactly what will physically sell, as well as the download-ability and immediate satisfaction for getting new books in a format which can be listened to as an audio event, will continue to eat away at the book industry as a whole.
An avid reader, I’m being seduced to the dark side of the book industry (audio sales) by the use of professional orators and talented Broadway and Hollywood names being used to narrate tales by my favorite authors.
It feels kind of like going backward into the early days of radio, but there is a lot to be said for immediate gratification in downloading a favorite authors’ stories into something as small as an iPod shuffle or other MP3 media where I can take an entire library with me, not harm the environment by killing trees, and listen to favorite stories over and over again vs. having to give up limited luggage space to carry a paperback or hardcopy volume or purchase and re-purchase favorite books while traveling due to having nothing “good” to read while away from home base.
I’d say the book market meltdown is a sign of the times, and that the book industry will become something of a “boutique” industry going forward, catering to children who need to learn to read, and to books which contain a wide variety of graphic images.
I can’t see the book industry remaining in its current mode of releasing a hardcopy 1 day, heavily discounting it and moving it to the bargin pile 6 months or a year later, and then coming out with a Trade sized paperback version to reach those folks that can’t find a bargain version due to high sales, never mind finally coming out with a “mass market” palm sized book for those folks who just want to read the book but not deal with the weight of a hardcopy version or the higher cost.
I’m a big reader, but this is an incredibly wasteful industry (when it comes to talking costs and natural resources consumption) so change is good and is inevitable.
[...] Back to the business of publishing, we all know about Black Wednesday. Yesterday I came across a related item on Gawker.com, sent to me by a writer friend who also [...]
[...] “Black Wednesday” strikes book publishing. [...]
[...] “Black Wednesday” strikes book publishing. [...]