The Bookseller.com

2nd December 2008

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Four Orion jobs go

13.06.08 Alison Flood

The Orion Group is in consultation with four members of staff, including non-fiction publishing director Ian Marshall, about redundancies.

The cuts are understood to centre on non-fiction, and range across departments. They apparently include two editorial roles. Marshall, who joined Orion in 2004 from Headline, had acquired titles including the memoirs of Duncan Bannatyne, Theo Paphitis and Duran Duran lead guitarist Andy Taylor. His most recent buy was Jamelia’s autobiography.

The news follows the loss of three edi­torial jobs in Weidenfeld & Nicolson's non-fiction team last year. At the time, Orion said the changes were a response to "the changing marketplace". W&N also moved to trim its ­non-fiction list following the redundancies, writing off a number of author advances as it aimed to halve its non-fiction output from 100 to 50 titles a year.

Orion deputy c.e.o. Malcolm Edwards would not comment on the redundancies, except to say: “We are in consultation with a small number of people about a small number of positions.”

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