Publishing News
Penguin Random House US is offering early retirement buyouts to “long-tenured” employees who’ve been with the company for more than 20 years, and who will be 60 years of age or older by the end of 2018. The deadline to take early retirement is October 8, 2018, and those who take the buyout will leave by December 31. Company spokesperson Claire von Schilling told Publisher’s Lunch that the “voluntary separation offering (VSO)” isn’t due to the company’s upcoming move to new headquarters in 2019 or a result of declining sales: “We have offered VSOs from time to time over the past several years, irrespective of business performance and any office relocations…. this latest offering is similar to previous ones in that it is meant to address the requests and needs of many of our long-tenured employees who may be considering a change in their personal and professional lives.” She says the company has “a designated workspace” at the new headquarters “for every single current PRH New York-based employee.”
In 2019, UK publisher Pan Macmillan is leaving its offices in King’s Cross and moving to Clerkenwell for a “larger and distinctive new headquarters which will provide a flexible and empowering environment for its fast-growing business.”
Macmillan’s offices in New York were closed on July 20 and 21 after a huge steam pipe explosion at Fifth Avenue and 21st street on July 19 showered the area with asbestos and other debris. The mess was largely cleaned up over the weekend, and the offices reopened on July 24.
The Picador imprint at Macmillan has been made a unit of Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, and will stop publishing trade paperback originals in April 2019. The imprint will instead publish trade paperback reprints from FSG and Holt. Picador publisher Stephen Morrison left the company at the end of July 2018, and executive director of publicity James Meader will take over as associate publisher, reporting to new FSG publisher Mitzi Angel. Picador executive editor Anna DeVries is moving to St. Martin’s to be a senior editor there, but Elizabeth Bruce will remain a Picador editor. Picador was founded as an imprint of St. Martin’s in 1995, and spun off as a separate division at Macmillan in 2000.
Skyhorse Books will be distributed by Simon & Schuster in the US and in many international markets beginning January 1, 2019 (excluding Canada and South Africa, where they will continue to be distributed by Thomas Allen & Son and Peter Hyde & Associates, respectively). Skyhorse was previously distributed by Two Rivers Distribution/Ingram Publishers Services.
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