Bad News for Those of Us in Publishing

My editor extraordinaire at Jossey-Bass, Sheryl Fullerton, pointed me to a depressing post from Chip McGregor (a well-known literary agent) on the Black Friday (December 3) in the publishing industry.

Some of the lowlights:

• Simon & Schuster cut 35 people (2% of its workforce).
• Thomas Nelson cut 54 people (10% of its workforce).
• Random House axed some of its top people and announced it is restructuring — and will disband the Doubleday Publishing Group.
• It has been reported that Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has let go of

  several employees (the company doesn’t comment on personnel matters).
  Becky Saletan, the publisher, has been let go.

• And Borders’ stock price fell under one dollar. That’s a very bad
  thing — if their stock price stays under $1 for ninety days, they have
  to do a consolidation of stock (the  opposite of a stock split).