AMS Spin Cycle
Written byPosted on January 5, 2007
Filed Under AMS Bankruptcy
The Gray Lady finally gets on the case, with reporter Julie Bosman speaking to an unnamed publishing executive. “The publishers are going to end up taking a huge loss,” says this executive. Also quoted in the article is Grove/Atlantic publisher Morgan Entrekin, who simply says, “It’s a mess” and who is reported as now being in something of a mad scramble. Entrekin has nothing more to say beyond these three words.
Okay, so the publishers aren’t talking (or at least going on the record with journalists). But I must quibble with this publishing executive’s asinine suggestion that “authors and readers were unlikely to be affected by the bankruptcy filing.” With AMS currently incapable of paying off their creditors, with a pennies-on-the-dollar turnaround at best, and with current AMS stock now being extricated from warehouses, it’s very likely you won’t be seeing independent books in stores anytime soon, until the publishers left in the lurch work out alternative distribution methods or guaranteed ways to earn current revenue. So readers looking for something different from, say, Laurell K. Hamilton and Mitch Albom are going to start seeing a difference.
And let’s consider the publishers, who are now in the process of bearing the financial brunt in ways that may very well go unreported. With reduced revenue coming in, it is unlikely that the affected publishers are going to be paying out advances to authors as they struggle to meet their operating expenses. Authors who are writing quirky or experimental books that don’t sell as well as the blockbusters often must go to independent presses to get their work published. But if the independent presses are hurting, then advances and acquiring new titles may be the least of the indie publishers’ cost concerns as this mess gets sorted out.
This morning, Publishers Weekly reported grimmer news, noting that the bankruptcy court is now in the process of granting the publishers access to the inventory. At the moment, access is now at the discretion of Judge Sontchi. A creditors committee meeting is now set for January 12, but with the creditors committee being comprised of the 20 largest creditors (i.e., the big publishers), it remains to be seen whether the precarious financial condition of indie presses will be taken into account by the committee.
Heidi MacDonald observes this morning that it remains unknown what distribution percentage Dark Horse had with PGW.
Sarah’s also investigating this, discovering this article that suggests financial inconsistencies on PGW’s part.
Comments
3 Responses to “AMS Spin Cycle”
Leave a Reply
Books To Jump Up and Down Over
Beyond Heaving Bosoms by Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan. The famed writers behind Smart Bitches, Trashy Books have written a very funny and thoughtful volume about romances, both Old Skool and New Skool. Here is a book that any smug and humorless literary manboy beating his flabby passive chest over Banville or Bolano should probably read pronto, if only for the distant possibility that he might get over himself. While the Choose Your Own Adventure segment at the end caused me to have a very disturbing dream involving Shelley Long (don't ask), Sarah and Candy did have me rethinking many of my own misperceptions when I wasn't busy laughing. They're not afraid to take on the New York Times Bok Review or even the groupthink within certain sectors of the romance community.
Alice Fantastic by Maggie Estep. This wild and highly enjoyable narrative involves two sisters (presumably, the third one was still being rented out by Chekhov), a hippie ex-junkie mother who lives with seventeen dogs, a murder, gambling, and libidinous Hollywood actresses who live in Woodstock. But this is the wonderful Maggie Estep we're talking here. And what seems at first like a quirky yarn becomes something unexpectedly moving about connectivity. What I love about Estep's work is the way that she'll juxtapose an extremely astute observation (now that you mention it, why do cab drivers always have somebody to talk with on the phone past midnight?) with an often outrageous story development.
Generosity by Richard Powers. It doesn't come out until September 29th, but Richard Powers's latest will have anyone committed to books reconsidering their literary fervor. I foresee some animosity from the vanilla critics hostile to idea-driven novels, but book bloggers, YouTube chroniclers, and MFAs would do well to plunge into this chance-taking narrative, which introduces vital questions about what the reader's relationship is with media, scientific dissection, and "creative nonfiction." Are we rats fleeing to happy cities? Or can we find the humanism within the purported plague?
Pieces for the Left Hand by J. Robert Lennon. Lennon is one of the most underrated fiction writers working today. Much as On the Night Plain proved that Lennon had a lot more in the toolbox than heartfelt (and often very funny) suburban satire, this slim but fascinating volume juxtaposes 100 small-town anecdotes -- arranged by category -- in a manner that reads, at times, like Nicholson Baker's passions for minutiae and, at other times, Stewart O'Nan's concern for psychological detail. The result is fiction that makes us wonder about whether one person's subjective view of particulars can entirely be trusted. This book never found a publisher in 2005. But thankfully, Graywolf has released it in the United States, along with Lennon's latest novel, The Castle.
Wonderful World by Javier Calvo. This wonderfully raucous volume has been completely ignored by the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. But it's probably one of the most delightful reading experiences I've had this year. Calvo cavalierly mashes up multiple genres and manages to mix up familial subtext with larger-than-life, almost cartoonish characters. (Indeed, one might argue that one mobster's penis is a character of its own in this sprawling novel.). This is not an easy thing to pull off, but Calvo makes it work. And it's helped immeasurably by Mara Faye Lethem's idiom-specific translation. (See longer post.)
The Means of Reproduction, Michelle Goldberg This thoughtful book tackles the complicated (and little discussed) subject of reproductive rights from numerous angles, which includes a number of unpleasant but necessary ones. The upshot is that there isn't a quick fix solution for declining birth rates and fundamentalist abuses. Just about every political faction has contributed to the friction. But you'll want to read this book anyway to refamiliarize yourself with the topic, but also to understand just what's occurred during the past several decades to get us where we are today. (See also podcast interview with Goldberg.)
Or send materials to:
315 Flatbush Avenue, #231
Brooklyn, NY 11217
- The Super Bowl: Madison Avenue Misogyny
- The Bat Segundo Show: Christian Berger
- Paul Fischer: The Unpardonable Hack Who Charmed His Fellow Junketeers
- February 15th! Reader of a Lonely Heart!
- Knock Three Times
- New Review: Gail Godwin’s Unfinished Desires
- Macmillan: The New Amazonfail
- The Bat Segundo Show: Sue Grafton
- JD Salinger Dead
- The Mountain
I think this is a very important story. Here are a couple of questions I’d love to hear an answer to, if you happen to know:
– is there a historical precedent for this? have publishers been through this type of crisis before?
– what portion of AMS’s business did PGW represent? Was AMS’s failure related to financial problems at PGW, or is PGW (and its creditors) just getting screwed because of AMS’s problems?
Just thought I’d ask, Ed, in case you have the answers …
I’m no expert, but I can answer, in general terms, your questions:
- “Is there a historical precedent for this? Have publishers been through this type of crisis before?”
Sure. There have been other times when book distributors have gone bankrupt, causing all sorts of problems for their client publishers.
Among the most prominent example (and one that’s often cited in some discussions about PGW) is the 2002 bankruptcy of the LPC Group which distributed many independent publishers.
Also, a Canadian distributor General Publishing declared bankruptcy in 2002, which caused similar panic for its distributees.
Indeed, I think it fair to say that many of the reactions to the AMS/PGW bankruptcy are colored by people’s recollection of the LPC bankruptcy.
- “What portion of AMS’s business did PGW represent?”
Keeping in mind that AMS has had to restate earnings and financial statements several times over the years (and has done so with varying degrees of timeliness) and that any figures the genera public may be able to dig up might be of dubious accuracy, but:
According to a March 2006 release (here: http://tinyurl.com/ylvulc ), AMS estimated 2005’s net sales at somewhere between $915 and $920 million.
According to the Shelf-Awareness article at http://tinyurl.com/wc2y5 , PGW had actually had a very good 2006, reporting that 2006 net sales were up 5.5% to $138.6 million. If I’m doing the math right, that implies PGW’s net sales in 2005 to be a bit over $131 million.
And if all that’s right, that’d lead one to believe that PGW represented about 15% of AMS’s overall business in 2005.
Obviously, those numbers may be flawed, and “net sales” doesn’t give a compete picture of a company’s overall financial status, but these numbers might give a general sense of the relative size of PGW in relation to its overall parent company.
PGW was never more than a hobby to the AMS executives – a desperate attempt to diversify their way out of a shrinking business with already razor-thin margins.
NOBODY in San Diego had a remote clue how to manage PGW. They NEVER integrated the two companies – corporate culture clash from day one.
All you “indies” are just gravel in the bottom of the publishing fishtank. AMS couldn’t give a rat’s ass about some tiny publisher or author. They were deep in business with all the heavyweights. Quit all your whining – you wanna play with the big boys, you take your chances.
– a former AMS associate.