Layoffs at HarperCollins explained -- horribly.

Yesterday, I heard rumors of layoffs at HarperCollins. Now I've read the explanation in Publishers' Weekly, and it's ugly. According to PW's article, "Harper Closing Collins; Other Layoffs Planned," Harper is closing its Collins division. Collins' general nonfiction, business, and reference titles will be published under the Harper imprint, which is fine...but, with the expansion of Harper's list, it's obvious that the books published under the Collins imprint (or even the Harper imprint, for that matter) won't get the attention they would have received and that they should have received. Book promotion, marketing, and sales may well fall by the wayside for individual titles -- through no fault of the authors or the publisher.

To me, that's an indication the economy is really hitting the skids: when authors' book projects are compromised and it's nobody's fault. Even this book publicist, who would love to blame a "bad guy" for the situation in which HarperCollins' authors find themselves now, can't. Stuff happens. And, in this economic climate, we'll be undoubtedly seeing a whole lot more stuff.

My thoughts and prayers are with those who are affected by the changes at HarperCollins -- staff members and authors alike. It's the end of an era for all of us...book publicists, book lovers, authors, and publishing industry professionals alike.

Are these books even worth promoting?

HarperCollins is launching an imprint which will be led by Robert S Miller, founder of Hyperion. A new imprint, you say. Wow! Great!

Well, not so much. The new HarperCollins imprint, the name of which hasn't yet been announced (or this book publicist has missed it), has two drawbacks. First, it doesn't pay an advance to authors (or the advance is so small that it may as well not exist, since it won't cover the author's time in preparing the book and waiting for it to pay royalties). Also -- and this is the biggie -- the books will be nonreturnable.

I've just read a Guardian Weekly article that quotes Miller as saying that he'll have to figure out a way to get booksellers to buy his books on a nonreturnable basis. Yes. And right after he figures that out, he can end world hunger, get the U.S. troops out of Iraq, and cure AIDS.

I'll sit here and wait.

The new HarperCollins imprint begs the question: Are the books they publish even going to be books, given the fact that -- unless Miller pulls a rabbit out of a hat that has long proven itself hostile to bunnies -- bookstores won't even entertain the idea of carrying them? Worse, since the books are nonreturnable, most bookstores won't even know how to order the books and will, mostly likely, turn customers away. Even an appearance on "Oprah" couldn't turn a book that probably won't be ordered by bookstores into a success.

I just hope that, before authors sign on with the new HarperCollins imprint do their homework and determine whether they can live with its drawbacks. With changes occurring in the publishing industry, the homework never ends.

Doris Lessing has a MySpace page. Do you?

Doris Lessing has something you may not have. Yes, yes, Doris Lessing has a Nobel Prize in literature, but that's not what I was talking about. Doris Lessing has something far more impressive than a Nobel Prize (shoot -- any author can get one of those if, say, that author generates one of the world's most noteworthy bodies of literary work over the course of her lifetime).

Doris Lessing has a MySpace page.

The New York Times broke the news to me with this article.

Doris Lessing, at age 87, "gets it." Or, at least, she understands that she doesn't "get it," so she's partnered with somebody who does -- and she has 240 MySpace "friends" -- and counting -- to show for it.

Now here's a literary genius who probably wouldn't know an email account from an iPod. Yet she's taken the advice of a technically-savvy admirer, Jan Hanford, and developed a Web site as well as a MySpace page where fans can connect with her, express their admiration of her work, find out about future projects, and so forth. It's especially wonderful to think that Lessing found her way to Cyberpace and the world of online book marketing when you consider the fact that her publisher, HarperCollins, wasn't in on the deal. In fact, according to the NYT, Lessing's adventures in social network were "news to the HarperCollins online marketing manager, Jeffrey Yamaguchi."

Social networking is similar to blogging in that, while it seems to create online buzz "somehow," few of us over the age of 21 have a firm grasp of how, exactly, it works. But that's okay. As Doris Lessing has demonstrated, understanding the mechanism behind cyberspace community building isn't the point.

Partnering with someone who "gets it" is the point. Suspending disbelief, getting creative, and taking the plunge...that's the path to creating online buzz for your book. And, come to think of it, it's probably at least part of the blueprint Lessing would endorse for scoring a Nobel Prize in literature, too.