Not so happy holidays for publishers and booksellers!
Tis the season for a recession!
With the state of the American economy, there is little hope that even the holiday shopping season will give a boast to the economy because most people just don’t have a lot of extra money to spend right now. And those who do have extra money are keeping any extra cash safe, under the mattress, like I do.
Needless to say, my daily email from Publishers Weekly this morning was filled with some pretty grim news. Here’s a brief digest:
1. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has stopped acquiring new manuscripts for the time being.
Josef Blumenfeld, v-p of communications for HMH, confirmed that the publisher has "temporarily stopped acquiring manuscripts" across its trade and reference divisions. The directive was given verbally to a handful of executives and, according to Blumenfeld, is "not a permanent change." Blumenfeld, who hedged on when the ban might be lifted, said that the right project could still go to the editorial review board.
There was no mention how long this stop will go for, but my guess is at least into the New Year.
HMH Places "Temporary Halt on Acquisitions
2. Another chain bookstore, Books-A-Million, see profits sink drastically.
The drumbeat of bad news from the nation’s bookstore chains continued Friday with Books-A-Million reporting that total revenue dropped 5.7% in the third quarter ended November 1, to $110.9 million. Comparable store sales tumbled 9.9%, the "weakest comparable store sales in many years," said CEO Sandy Cochran. With the sales decline, BAM’s loss deepened to $2.2 million in the quarter compared to a loss of $555,000 in last year’s third period.
Right now, most booksellers are just trying to keep their costs down to make up for very sluggish sales. I wonder how many bookstores will survive into 2009?
BAM Comps Drop Nearly 10%
3. Broccoli Books, the US branch of Broccoli International, is shutting down. Broccoli is out of Japan and publishes mainly manga, anime and various games.
In what looks to be a reaction to the economic downturn, manga publisher Broccoli Books, the U.S. branch of Broccoli International, a Japan-based international producer of anime, manga, games and pop culture merchandise, will close at the end of this year.
The article pretty much says it all. Not much to add other than I hope this is not a sign of things to come with publishers.
Broccoli Books to Shut Down
A silver-lining around the cloudy economic downturn?
The news from the publishing world is not all doom and gloom, however. Publishers Weekly also has an article about Random House expanding its offering of ebooks! While I don’t know if this is a direct result of the slumping economy, it would certainly make sense. By offering their titles in digital format, RH will controlling its costs with respect to printing, inventory and even shipping. A smart move, in my opinion:
Random House has announced plans to add 6,000 backlist titles to its current e-book library. With these additions, Random House will have nearly 15,000 titles available in the digital format. (The house, which is the biggest trade publisher in the world, is already one of the largest e-book publishers.)
It should also be noted that Random House will be offering all of their ebooks in the ePub format, which is quickly becoming the "standard" for digital books. Maybe they watched the music industry shoot itself in the foot by not jumping on the digital bandwagon soon enough and wanted to pre-empt any consumer rebellion. Whatever their reasons, I applaud RH’s decision!
Related posts
- Two large publishers going digital, kind of
- Publishers continue to struggle in down economy
- Publishers & booksellers count on big name authors in 2009
- Despite bad economy, Harlequin has good year
- Happy Holidays!
Read More: Publishing News
