Following their earlier statements, the HarperCollins Union began their strike today, forming an in-person picket line as well as posting to social media. The strike was originally scheduled for November 7, but was delayed until after Election Day. This is the second strike action this year: the union held a one-day strike on July 20, 2022. This time the union plans to picket until they secure a new contract.

Calls ...Read More

Katherine Tegen, the vice president and publisher of the Katherine Tegen Books imprint at HarperCollins Children’s, is retiring in December 2022. The imprint will continue under a new name, yet to be announced.

Tegen began working for HarperCollins in 1984, at Harper & Row Junior Books. After stints at Houghton Mifflin and Disney, she rejoined HarperCollins in 2001 and launched her own imprint in 2003. Her authors included Veronica Roth ...Read More

The HarperCollins Union has voted to go on strike for the second time this year if their concerns are not addressed; the latest strike date is November 7, 2022. The Union held a one-day strike on July 20, 2022. You can read their latest statement here.

The employees of HarperCollins have been unionized for over 80 years, and are part of Technical, Office and Professional Union UAW Local 2110. They ...Read More

Distributor Baker & Taylor spent over two weeks with their operations offline after they were targeted in a ransomware attack around August 20, 2022, crippling their ability to process orders. Their sys­tems were restored in September, with a statement saying,

Bringing our systems back online safely and securely has been a top priority. Our internal technical teams with the support of external cyber-security experts have brought our servers and applications ...Read More

HarperCollins has let 12 staffers go across adult and children’s divisions and instituted a hiring freeze, citing “cost pressures.” In a statement to Publishers Lunch, the company said,

The business is facing continued cost pressures, including price increases related to printing, production, freight and distribution, and we are taking decisive steps to operate as efficiently as possible. As part of this process, we have made some difficult decisions and a ...Read More

Kensington Publishing has acquired Erewhon Books, which will continue as a Kensington imprint. Sarah Guan will continue to lead the imprint, and the rest of the Erewhon team will continuing working under the new owners.

Kensington President and CEO Steven Zacharius said,

The diverse, high-quality list Erewhon has built and the level of support they’ve been able to offer their authors as a small, but effective and passionate team is ...Read More

Amazon has announced changes to a controversial policy which allowed readers to return ebooks for an automatic refund within seven days of purchase, whether they’d read the book or not. Once the new policy is implemented, automatic refunds will be limited to books where under 10% of the book has been read.

A statement from the Authors Guild said,

The Authors Guild is proud to report that our discussions with ...Read More

Online magazine Daily Science Fiction, which also delivers stories to subscribers via email every weekday, is going on hiatus after 12 years. Editors Michele-Lee Barasso and Jonathan Laden wrote to subscribers on August 11, 2022:

Hi. Many of you have noted that we’ve been closed for story submissions for a bit. Many more of you (our most loyal supporters–Thank you!) noticed that today we just canceled automatic renewals for the ...Read More

Tom Doherty Associates, a division of Macmillan, is rebranding as Tor Publishing Group, effective immediately.

President and publisher Devi Pillai said, “Although the Tor name has always been associated with science fiction and fantasy, our list has included titles beyond that genre since our inception. With this name change and continued growth, the Tor name will now stand for quality in various types of genre publishing, with each imprint representing ...Read More

Disney Publishing World­wide is shifting its global sales and distribution services to Penguin Random House Publisher Ser­vices (PRHPS), effective April 1, 2023. Disney will also expand their subsidiary Marvel Publishing’s existing partnership with PRHPS. Disney is leaving their partnership with Hachette Book Group, which has distributed Disney books since 2013.

French media conglomerate Vivendi now owns just over 55% of Lagardere, parent company of Hachette Book Group, having purchased 11 ...Read More

Publisher Dana Canedy is stepping down from Simon & Schuster’s adult imprint after two years to focus on writing her next memoir (out from S&S in 2024). She was the first Black woman to ever hold the position. CEO Jonathan Karp will take over her position “for the foreseeable future.”

Karp says Canedy “has improved and bolstered the Simon & Schuster imprint in innumerable ways: by attracting incredibly talented authors ...Read More

DAW Books owners and co-publishers Betsy Wollheim and Sheila Gilbert have sold the company to Astra Publishing House. The entire DAW staff will continue working under the new owners.

Astra CFO and president Leying Jiang said,

We’re so thrilled to have DAW Books and its talented team joining Astra Publishing House. It feels like we are adding another bright star to our growing program. And so this acquisition marks a ...Read More

Macmillan expects to reopen offices on July 7, 2022, following the “security incident” that shut down their operations on June 25, 2022. The closure included physical offices “out of an abundance of caution.”

Most systems are operational for employees again, and Macmillan has resumed warehouse operations, and are now receiving, processing, and shipping orders again.

In its latest statement Macmillan says the company is bringing extra resources to bear in ...Read More

Andrew Wilmot’s Withered is the winner of ECW Press‘s Best New Speculative Novel Contest. The novel will be published by ECW in a deal negotiated by Kelvin Kong at K2 Literary.

The contest received over 170 entries, with the winner chosen by judges Jen R. Albert and Terese Mason Pierre.

For more information, see the announcement.

While you are here, please take a moment to support Locus with a one-time ...Read More

Lesley Conner has announced her new role as co Editor-in-Chief of Apex Magazine, alongside Jason Sizemore.

Conner said,

Jason and I have worked closely together on every issue of Apex Magazine since he stepped back into the role of Editor-in-Chief in Jan 2015 and I became managing editor, but since the first “Lesley” issue in Nov 2021 my role at Apex has really grown.

For more information about Apex, see ...Read More

Macmillan, including UK branch Pan Macmillan, suffered a “security incident, which involves the encryption of certain files on our network” on Saturday, June 25, 2022. In response and “out of an abundance of caution,” Macmillan closed physical and virtual offices, and stated in an email that “customers, employees, and other third-party partners may notice that certain systems are unavailable.” While their websites are still active, sales and delivery of goods ...Read More

Bloomsbury UK has an­nounced plans to hire 100 new employees ‘‘across all areas of the company’’ to lighten the work­load for existing staff. A survey of UK publish­ing recently reported ‘‘industry-wide burnout.’’ A spokesperson told The Bookseller, ‘‘These posi­tions are targeted where our business is growing, where we want to increase support for our authors and grow the global presence of our most important brands, and where we know there ...Read More