Faith*in*fiction notes that Westbow will be history in its parent company’s reorganization. Thomas Nelson has 18 imprints and plans to consolidate all of them under one name over several months. President and CEO of Thomas Nelson, Michael Hyatt, said imprints are “an inside-out way of looking at the market, self-focused rather than customer-focused. The only ones who care about imprints are publishers, and they are expensive to maintain.” No jobs will be cut and some added, according to the report.
I wonder if that’s smart. My understanding was that Westbow was created to produce books to be sold in the general fiction market, avoiding the CBA market ghetto. I think consumers are familiar with publisher names to some extent. I know that Baen has a very loyal, brand-conscious following. But maybe that’s just the view from this side of the publishing divide.
Great. Did anyone catch what the Thomas Nelson guy said about the number of titles they’d be carrying in the future? One hint: it’s not more.
Plus, do we need still more marketing devoted to mega-authors like Max Lucado? Let’s be honest here; the publishers sure don’t seem to want to publish the most challenging stuff, do they?
Yeah, I noticed that comment, doing more with fewer titles. I hoped he meant there are duplicates among the imprints which will now be unnecessary, but it may not be that. I have other things to be discouraged about, so I don’t want to waste emotional energy on this.
Not exactly on topic; but there was a tribute to J. Baen in the recent (but one) issue of Locus.