By Rachel Deahl -- Publishers Weekly

In a statement on his blog Tuesday night, Thomas Nelson CEO Michael Hyatt announced that the Christian publishing house has laid off 54 employees, or 10% of its workforce. The entry, dubbed "The Recession Hits Home," explained that the cuts, which take effect on Friday, affect almost all departments and were necessary because of the slumping economy. 

This round of layoffs is the second Thomas Nelson has recently endured, as Hyatt noted in the entry; in April the publisher laid off a small number of employees that spokesperson Lindsey Nobles described only as "a single digit percentage of our workforce." These cuts, which Hyatt said he was hoping he wouldn't have to make--he wrote that "as recently as September 19, I assured our employees that we were not planning another reduction in our workforce"--were impossible to avoid given the sales reports from September and October.

Publishers Weekly

In what has to be one of the grimmest days in publishing in recent years, Simon & Schuster announced today that it has eliminated 35 positions. According to a memo from CEO Carolyn Reidy, the cuts came in all areas of the company, including S&S's publishing divisions, operations and sales departments and international division. Reidy said that despite its best efforts to find ways to cut costs, the job eliminations were "an unavoidable acknowledgment of the current bookselling marketplace and what may very well be a prolonged period of economic instability."

Early in the day, S&S announced that the head of its children's group, Rick Richter will leave the company at the end of the week. PW has since learned that Rubin Pfeffer, senior v-p and publisher of the children's group is also departing. Pfeffer joined S&S in 2005. He had been senior v-p and chief creative officer at Pearson Education, and before that spent 26 years with Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

The latest news from S&S follows the announcement this morning of the reorganization of Random House and the elimination of 54 positions at Thomas Nelson. In the Random restructuring, CEO Markus Dohle is talking to Steve Rubin about a different role at the company for Rubin following Dohle's decision to disband the Doubleday Publishing Group which Rubin had led.

[Five Down to Three]

Random Drops the Next Shoe: Rubin and Applebaum Stepping Down in Reorg

The first part of the Random House reorganization everyone has been expecting under new ceo Markus Dohle was announced this morning. President and publisher of the Bantam Dell group Irwyn Applebaum is leaving the company immediately after 25 years there. Dohle calls him "one of the most successful publishers in our industry. He is widely regarded as a champion of great storytelling, with marketing acumen to match." The publishing line itself is being absorbed by the Random House group, under Gina Centrello, along with the Spiegel & Grau unit that had been part of Doubleday. It puts the company's two big mass-market lines together in the same division, though Dohle says that they will "continue to have separate editorial departments."

Doubleday is also being eliminated as a freestanding group, which means president and publisher Steve Rubin's job no longer exists. Here Dohle says he is "currently in discussions" with Rubin "about creating a new role for him at Random House, Inc., working directly with me. As you know, Steve has successfully led Doubleday for almost two decades and is universally respected and admired throughout the industry for both his publishing expertise and management skills."
Knopf will absorb the Doubleday and Nan A. Talese lines, while the Crown group will incorporate Broadway, Doubleday Business, Doubleday Religion, and WaterBrook Multnomah.

Dohle does indicate that "the newly formed publishing groups will continue to bid independently in auctions," though there are now three of them instead of five. "Each group will have my full support to publish autonomously, promote aggressively, and strive for more competitive advantages in the marketplace."

Dohle tells employees he has "created a plan for our future that aligns existing strengths and publishing affinities and fosters teamwork throughout the company. It will maximize our growth potential in these challenging economic times and beyond."

As for the next shoes to drop, Dohle says "Coordinating our online marketing and growing our digital publishing business will be further priorities. Gina [Centrello], Jenny [Frost], Sonny [Mehta] and I will share our more specific publishing plans and organizational structure in due course." (Close observers of the company will note that the memos were distributed by Random group executive director of publicity & public relations Carol Schneider rather than Stuart Applebaum.) He also notes that "because of the current economic crisis, our industry is facing some of the most difficult times in publishing history." [PM]
See the memos here:
Dohle letter
Rubin memo
Applebaum memo 

HMH Officially Has No Idea What They Mean

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt's botched public expression of their current acquisitions policy has reached comic levels. In the latest installment, vp of communications Josef Blumenfeld confirmed for the AP our report from an agent that the children's trade division is still buying projects. Otto Penzler adds that the freeze was news to him, and says that a "high-level Houghton executive" told him he could continue to acquire for his line of mysteries. "'Does this mean I can keep buying books?'" he asked. "'Absolutely,' I was told."

Blumenfeld tries to persuade the AP that "talk of a freeze had been taken out of context." But he's the one who used the word "freeze" and said they had "temporarily stopped acquiring manuscripts." And Jeremy Dickens, the president of parent company Education Media and Publishing Group, is the used the same term, and raised the notion that it might not be temporary: "We have plenty of titles in the pipeline that will be coming out next year and we will continue to evaluate opportunities if and when we decide to lift the freeze." AP

Report: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Owners Might Never Restart Its Engines; Parent Company Open to Sale

by Leon Neyfakh  

The New York Times interviewd Jeremy Dickens, president of Education Media and Publishing Group, the holding company that owns struggling publishing house Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. In the interview Mr. Dickens reveals that lifting the temporary freeze on trade acquisition that was reported Monday by Publishers Weekly might be a matter of "if" and not "when," and that the company would consider selling off its trade operation if the right offer was extended.

"We have plenty of titles in the pipeline that will be coming out next year and we will continue to evaluate opportunities if and when we decide to lift the freeze," Mr. Dickens tells the piece's author, Motoko Rich. "If there's a transaction that makes sense for all of our stakeholders, we'll consider it."

Mr. Dickens said Education Media is $7 billion in debt and paying about $500 million annually in debt service. He said the company had plenty of money with which to pay that down, but that the trade publishing business-which according to The Times represents 5.5 percent of the company's revenues-is not as high a priority as it once was.

The Times piece draws a comparison between the pitiful state of things at Houghton with the relative prosperity at French-owned Hachette Book Group, where employees not only are allowed to acquire books but also received bonuses this year.

You can read more on how Hachette, and its C.E.O. David Young, came to be clobbering their competition so thoroughly here.

By Rachel Deahl -- Publishers Weekly

A surprise, if not an all-out bombshell, is how agents described the news that Becky Saletan was leaving her post as publisher and v-p of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. HMH spokesperson Josef Blumenfeld, who confirmed on Tuesday that Saletan had resigned, would not comment on whether HMH is actively looking to replace Saletan, whose last day is Dec.10.

With little information available about how and why Saletan left--her departure comes on the heels of what many agents said was the real bombshell, the news, which surfaced last week, that HMH had put a freeze on acquisitions for its adult division--many in the business are wondering, and worrying, about the future of HMH.

One agent who recently sold a book to HMH expressed deep concern about what's happening there and said "nobody knew" Saletan's plans. A former Harcourt staffer, equally dismayed and disappointed to hear Saletan was stepping down, said he was "sad and even angry."

Another agent, who described Saletan as "forthright and principled," said the timing was particularly unfortunate since, just before the acquisition freeze surfaced, HMH had hosted an open house on October 29 to formally introduce the newly merged publisher to agents. 

At the open house, Saletan welcomed submissions and, the agent assumed, must therefore not have known what the corporate mandate was (or soon would be). "There could be a sense of betrayal... when you're the public face of a company and you invite people to submit and then have something like that come down from above. It must have been very upsetting to her."

Another agent, who agreed that the situation must have been upsetting for Saletan, said she sees this as more than an issue of professional pride. "I'm sure [Saletan] was upset, but for her to leave such a wonderful publishing house and wonderful job, things had to have gotten fairly ugly."

Still others floated the idea that Saletan took the fall for the leak about the acquisitions freeze. 

Although agents in children's publishing who have books at the house confirmed that it does indeed seem to be business as usual on the kids' side--HMH had said the freeze did not affect the children's division--some are wondering whether Saletan's departure is a death knell for the trade division at HMH.

"It doesn't seem like they're particularly committed to keeping it running," said one agent, referring to HMH's trade division. But another agent scoffed at this notion: "I don't think [what's happening there] is an impending sign of a sale--it's too venerable a company." That same agent said she thinks the acqusition freeze will soon thaw and that she would still send a big book to the house.  

But whatever spurred Saletan to quit, all the agents PW spoke to [I was unavailable for comment...] agreed that her reputation stands. As one agent put it: "Good people, like good books, will find a place and be valued... even in a down economy."

Augsburg Fortress

Augsburg Fortress, the publishing arm of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America based in Minneapolis, announced last month it would end its consumer book publishing line to focus on publishing for congregations and higher education. The Christian Century shares details, which include the elimination of 55 jobs and the closing of nine bookstores in the US by next May.

No More Kindles for Christmas

Amazon is sold out of Kindles and is saying that it will take "11 to 13 weeks" to ship new orders. A notice on the site says, "Due to heavy customer demand, Kindle is sold out."

As ever, theories abound, while facts are few. Did Oprah drive more sales than expected? Are they letting the current version of the Kindle sell out while they prepare to replace it with Kindle 2.0? Silicon Alley Insider

Celtic's the Hot Ticket

UNDERDOG PRESS needs your support to publish great work that needs a home. Please visit us at www.underdogpress.com today and pre-order Sheryl Brennan's Celtic Sacrifice in Trade Paperback.

Hero, Second Class is Mitchel Bonds' debut novel. And what a way to start!

A delightful roast of all the fantasy fiction elements we hold dear. It is said only someone who loves something can truly lampoon it. So it is in this case. Bonds' novel is a riot.  

Quest with Cyrus, our young protagonist who aspires to be a Hero. But Heroes have a guild, you see, and lots of rules. One has to pay one's dues, apprentice to a Hero in good standing, and comport oneself as befits a member of the Heroes Guild. (Jeff Gerke)

The Personifid Invasion by R.E. Bartlett ... Published by MARCHER LORD PRESS: www.marcherlordpress.com