Sat 27 Dec 2008
Although most media attention has focused on the tribulations of the auto and finance industries, the current economic troubles have not left major publishers unscathed: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, publisher of J.R.R. Tolkien’s work and one of the United States’ largest educational publishers, announced a “freeze” on manuscript acquisitions last month.
Although company spokespeople have generally described the “freeze” as a hard suspension, Josef Blumenfeld, Harcourt’s VP of Communications, has been reluctant to take such a strong stand. As reported in the New York Times*, Blumenfeld preferred the description of Harcourt’s policy as a “freeze-lite” under which “Every new manuscript that comes in is going to be subjected to a higher degree of scrutiny and consideration than has previously been the case.”
Nevertheless, Harcourt’s announcement is being widely interpreted as a simple and fast suspension on acquisitions. Our opinion is that guild members (and any readers!) considering Harcourt as a possible publisher for one of their works should take Harcourt’s policy into sober consideration.
*Rich, Motoko. (2008, November 24) Book Publisher Suspends New Acquisitions. New York Times
2 Responses to “Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Has Suspended Acquisitions”
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December 28th, 2008 at 10:16 am
This policy does not affect their children’s division. Henry Holt, though, has laid off an editor and art director. These are people who were faculty at the NJ SCBWI June conference. Laurie
December 28th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
My fear is that other publishers and divisions within publishers will adopt similar, though unofficial, policies: My hunch is that it’s simply going to be quite a lot harder to make the cut over the next two years…