Macmillan--which owns Farrar, Straus & Giroux, St. Martin's Press, Holt, Picador--is laying off 46 people, about 4% of its staff. Various children's imprints will be consolidated into one company-wide children's division, to be called the Macmillan Children's Publishing Group.
"Book sales are markedly slower this Christmas than they were last Christmas," said Macmillan CEO John Sargent. He further predicted that the tough times will continue "at least through the first half of next year."
What happens in the Cave doesn't always stay there... Conversations and news from Ellora's Cave Publishing, an erotic romance publisher.
I just posted yesterday on The Goddesses of Storyteelling blog about this very thing. As the sales for print publishers slip, ebooks are rising at an accelerated pace. The companies-like EC-that know how to manage both seem to be the ones operating highly successfully. I think the information coking out of NY eachd ay is something we all should pay attention to.
ReplyDeleteTotally off topic, but I was wondering if, at some point, you could address the question: how do you give someone an ebook as a gift?
ReplyDeleteIt is Christmastime, and I do want to support ebooks!
You give someone an e-book at xmas by putting their email address in as the download address at Ellora's Cave or Cerridwen Press. I did it last year. You can also buy more as they cost less.
ReplyDeletee books eliminate so many problems---shipping, storage, paper, returns...
ReplyDeleteI wonder why book stores don't have kiosks where you can download a sample chapter--like they have listening stations in the music section.