You are viewing your 1 free article this month. Login to read more articles.
Publishers are scrutinising schedules in the face of the recession, in a climate of list trimming, changing formats and shifting publication dates. However, insider talk of titles being cancelled remains unsubstantiated. Philippa Milnes-Smith, chair of the Association of Authors' Agents, said: "Publishers are undoubtedly reviewing their publishing programmes and making changes to publication dates—sometimes delays, to delay expenditure, and sometimes pulling titles forward, to bring in revenue, if it is the right book with retail demand."
Milnes-Smith added that good communication between publishers and authors was vital. She said: "It is very hard for authors if their books are postponed without a positive reason or explanation."
CCV publisher Dan Franklin said that the publisher was trimming its lists by approximately 15% for 2010, and by about half that percentage this year. He said: "It's our old favourite, 'Publish fewer books better', but the economic circumstances have really concentrated the mind. We're not cancelling titles, although one tends to look with a slightly beady eye at the people who are eight years late delivering. [To trim this year's list], effectively one delays. I moved four or five books from autumn 2009 to spring 2010. It would probably have happened anyway, because people are always late delivering, but I wrote to the authors to tell them they had more time."
Suzanne Baboneau at Simon & Schuster said that titles were still coming into the 2009 schedule but added: "With non-fiction, in some cases you get books which were commissioned three or four years ago. It may be that we say: 'This isn't a topical book, we won't force it out this year for the sake of it.'"
Baboneau added that some titles originally intended as hardbacks or trade paperbacks will now be published directly into B-format paperback, following feedback from Waterstone's. She said: "We had a trade paperback in June, and they said: ‘We could give it much more support if it goes straight to B.' I'm all for it—if you get a debut novel into three-for-twos instead of languishing as a trade paperback."
At John Murray, m.d. Roland Phillips said no contracts would be cancelled because of the market downturn. He added: "But more than ever we are concentrating on the schedule, where each book fits in our internal selling and with the slots in the market, particularly in fiction."