Wizards of the Coast (WotC) (owned by Hasbro) has announced that they’re “refocusing publishing efforts on the company’s two core brands—Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons. As part of this strategy, the Discoveries imprint will be discontinued after the end of the 2008 catalog year.”
WotC Vice President of Marketing Casey Reeter said “there is still so much more to discover in the rich fantasy worlds of Magic and D&D. Refocusing our publishing resources allows us to tell those untold stories and expand the reach of our core brands.” Beginning in 2009, any novel or series that does not support those core brands will be “removed from the publishing schedule.” These changes will not affect the 2008 schedule, as evidence of which, SFScope just received a review copy of Tim Waggoner‘s Cross County, which is scheduled to be published in September.
Author Steve Rasnic Tem actually scooped WotC on the news, posting last week that his wife, Melanie Tem’s planned Yellow Wood (originally scheduled for hardcover publication in January) and his own Deadfall Hotel (November 2009) have both been cancelled. Tem writes “Our agent Bob Fleck is busy readying them for immediate submission to other houses. I know Deadfall Hotel had barely gone out before we made the decision to sell to Discoveries, so there are lot of places for it to go still. One nice thing is both books have had a good polishing in the interim.”
Waggoner notes that he’d hoped Cross County “might be the start of a series.” After it appears, he’ll try to place the series elsewhere.