Cumberland House Publishing, a small Nashville-based niche publisher, has sold its assets, including 97 titles, as it prepares to fold amid a tough market for selling books.
Sourcebooks Inc., an independent publisher based in Naperville, Ill., assumed rights to the titles and an additional nine books that haven't been released, plus the Cumberland House name and Web site under the deal that closed this week.
Two-thirds of Cumberland's 20 employees were let go. Ron Pitkin, its president, would be a consultant to Sourcebooks, which hired two other employees and plans to keep the Cumberland brand for publishing gift books and regional titles in areas such as sports, cooking and history.
Pitkin started Cumberland 12 years ago after stints as co-founder and vice president of the former Rutledge Hill Press and as an editor at publisher Thomas Nelson Inc. of Nashville. Cumberland had been selling a million books a year, but industry sales have fallen amid tough economic times made worse by a financial market meltdown, Pitkin said.
"Customers are afraid to bring in more books because sales are slow in bookstores — they don't have the traffic," he said, adding: "More and more of the costs that should be borne by distributors and book chains are being pushed on the publisher."
For instance, Pitkin said it would have cost Cumberland a quarter of a million dollars to buy equipment to keep track of customers' inventory, a responsibility large bookstore chains are passing on to publishers.
'It fits really well for us'Amid the industry changes, Pitkin said he wants to focus on his editorial strengths instead of run a business. His role with Sourcebooks involves finding books for publication.
Dominique Raccah, Sourcebooks' president, said she was drawn by Cumberland's success with products including the Why a Daughter Needs a Dad series of gift books by author Greg Lang that has sold more than 3 million copies, and by Pitkin's reputation.
"It fits really well for us," she said, adding that books would continue to be acquired and published under the Cumberland imprint.
Al Greco, a marketing professor at Fordham University in New York, said more small publishers that don't have enough capital are going out of business. More publishers also are cutting back on titles that they publish.
"The next year to year-and-a-half will be a challenge for publishers big and small," he said. "The smaller publishers are a lot more volatile because if they don't have the capital to get through the credit crunch, they can run out of money. What that means is that they don't have money for technology, don't have money for acquisition of new titles."
Pitkin said he is seeking publishers to take on rights to 400 other previously published titles not included in the Sourcebook deal.
"I was never trained in business management, I'm an editor trained in words," said Pitkin, 66. "Once I'm finished here, I'm going to do the things I got in publishing to do."
Ringtone royalty rate gets big boost
Investor Report: Investing by December 1st
Ringtone royalty rate gets big boost
Investor Report: Investing by December 1st
