Ghostwriting and publishing services firm Scribe Media abruptly shut down yesterday, laying off its staff. Wednesday evening the company sent an email to employees’ personal email addresses, stating: “Based on unforeseen business circumstances and faltering business based on unavailability of additional capital, Scribe is forced to shut down its operations and layoff employees at our Austin location on May 24, 2023.” An employee said staff was initially notified in a Zoom meeting, with company email access and healthcare cut off by the end of the day, and the company offering no severance. The employee estimated layoffs numbered 85 to 100 […]
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Good Neighbor Bookstore Cancels Preorders of Nonfiction Mystery Title
Following more rumors about the undisclosed major nonfiction title being released by Flatiron on July 9, Good Neighbor Books in Lakewood, NY announced that it has cancelled all preorders of the book. The store was among those that ignited speculation that the title might be a memoir from Taylor Swift, and posted a TikTok about it, which the publisher then asked them to take down. Amid growing theories that the title might be from the band BTS, the store released another video explaining why they are clearing their order book. “I’ve received not confirmation, but a lot of information from […]
Avid Reader Launches Credits Page Campaign
Avid Reader Press is adding a credits page to most of its titles, which will acknowledge the people at the imprint who worked on the book. The publisher described the initiative as ongoing. For now, whether a book gets a credits page or not will be decided case-by-case, like an acknowledgements page. First titles include Christie Tate’s B.F.F, which came out in February, and more recently, LEBRON by Jeff Benedict and BALL IN THE AIR by Michael Bamberger. The Avid Reader credits page names workers across a number of departments including editorial, marketing, production, jacket design and more, as well […]
Penguin Random House Makes Voluntary Separation Offer
Following voluntary buyout offers from Hachette Book Group (to employees over 50) and HarperCollins (to employees with more than 25 years of service) earlier this year, Penguin Random House announced internally their own voluntary separation offering this week — which was offered as a benefit, to “support our colleagues professional and personal lives” and “responding to the needs and desires of our long-tenured employees.” The offer is available to employees who will be 60 or older as of the end of the year, and have 15 years of service or more. Eligible employees have until June 20 to elect to […]
TikTok Owner May Launch Publishing Company
ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok, appears to be expanding into the publishing business. The company has listed a number of open jobs in the “online publishing” department in recent weeks, and a ByteDance subsidiary recently filed a trademark for 8th Note Press. A spokesperson told PL that the initiative is not related to TikTok and that ByteDance is always exploring new opportunities. The trademark application states that 8th Note Press expects to offer print books, ebooks, and audiobooks in fiction and nonfiction, as well as an app to buy and read the books. Unsurprisingly, social networking is part of […]
New York State Expected to Increase Minimum Wage
Governor Kathy Hochul announced an agreement with legislators on a new budget for the state of New York that would include increasing the minimum wage to $17 an hour by 2026 in NYC, Westchester and Long Island (rising by 2027 for the rest of the state). The reports do not indicate the effect on the earnings level for executive and administrative employees to be classified as exempt from overtime, though traditionally that level equals 75 times the hourly wage (in which case it would rise to $1,275 a week, or $66,300 a year).