10 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ APRIL 6, 2020
News
were part of a cost-saving initiative of parent company
Holtzbrinck, Macmillan began job cuts April 2 and instituted
a hiring freeze. In addition, the company began a temporary
reduction in pay for employees, which it anticipates will last
from April through June. The pay cuts are structured
according to salary level, Macmillan said. Employees at the
lower end of the pay scale remain unaffected, while the
reduction increases to 20% and 33% as salary increases,
with pay of the most senior executives reduced by 50% for
the three months.
Barnes & Noble also took action last week to cut costs as
business declined. The number of outlets temporarily closed
by B&N increased from 400 to more than 500 stores last
week, and the company furloughed what a spokesperson
called “a large number” of employees at its headquarters.
The furloughs occurred across all departments, the spokes-
person explained, “with the aim to maintain all functions but
at a much reduced level.” In the 100 or so stores that remain
open, B&N is limiting the number of customers to no more
than 10 at one time. In places where it legally can, B&N is
continuing to offer curbside pickup.
Half Price Books, which closed all of its 126 stores two
weeks ago, laid off or furloughed 2,146 people, represent-
ing 78% of its workforce of 2,752. “This is a very hard day
in the history of Half Price Books,” said Kathy Doyle Thomas,
chief strategy officer at Half Price. “But we know we will
come back. We just don’t know exactly when.”
In Canada, Indigo closed all of its 199 retail locations
and laid off 5,200 of its 7,000 employees. Indigo is con-
tinuing to operate its online business. Indigo CEO Heather
Reisman said she anticipates stores may be closed for as
long as 10 weeks. When the stores reopen, Indigo plans to
rehire as many laid-off employees as possible, a spokes-
person said.
The store closings and layoffs came against a backdrop
of declining unit sales of print books. According to NPD
BookScan, print units fell 9.2% in the week ended March
28 compared to the previous week. Of the four major cat-
egories, only juvenile fiction had an increase over the week
ended March 21, with units up 13%. Within the category,
the holiday/festival/religion segment had the biggest gain,
with a 46.8% jump in sales over the previous week.
After a 66% gain in the juvenile nonfiction category in the
week ended March 21 over the week ended March 14, units
fell 6%. The strongest-selling segment was holiday/festi-
val/religion, where units increased 34.3%. The big sales
winners in the week ended March 21—education/reference/
language and games/activities/hobbies—had salesdeclines in the most recent week of 28.3% and 1%,
respectively.
Sales in adult fiction were down in every genre in the most
recent week, and units declined a total of 21%. Unit sales
were also down in all nonfiction categories, and down 13%
overall. The home and gardening segment had the smallest
decline, 2.9%.
Adding to publishers’ headaches was the surprise deci-
sion made by the printer Quad in the last week of March
to close its book printing facilities, an action that sent
publishers scrambling to find a replacement. Last fall,
Quad put its book plants up for sale, but it has not attracted
a buyer. The closure comes at a time when publishers are
concerned about the loss of printing capacity due to the
coronavirus outbreak.
There was some good news last week. A surge in online
sales at Powell’s Books, which comprises five bookstores in
Portland, Ore., allowed the bookseller to rehire 49 of the
more than 340 staff it had laid off earlier in March.
In an effort to aid all booksellers, James Patterson
announced last week he is spearheading a group that
includes actor Reese Witherspoon and Reese’s Book Club,
the Book Industry Charitable Foundation, and the American
Booksellers Association whose aim is to raise millions of
dollars to help save independent bookstores from closing
permanently due to the pandemic.
A growing number of booksellers are turning to GoFundMe
campaigns in order to keep their stores afloat until business
improves. Among the booksellers using GoFundMe is 2019
PW Bookstore of the Year winner Literati Books in Ann
Arbor, Mich. Mike Gustafson, who owns the store with his
wife, Hilary Gustafson, wrote that even with the couple’s
emergency savings, which they will dip into if necessary,
Literati is “running out of cash to pay our rent, utilities, pay-
roll, liabilities, and publishers, and make sure we have
enough cash on-hand to re-open once we make it through.”
He added that the store’s business plan is based around
in-store purchasing and events—revenue streams that are
gone. Gustafson’s words resonated: Literati met its
$100,000 goal within 48 hours.
A week in the coronavirus world would not be complete
without the announcement of the cancellation of an impor-
tant industry event. The most recent was the ABA’s deci-
sion to cancel its Children’s Institute set for late June at
the Weston La Paloma Resort & Spa in Tucson, Ariz. The
event has been rescheduled for June 16–18, 2021, at the
same venue.
—Jim Milliot, with reporting by the PW staff