In the last few weeks, big changes have been announced at Dorchester Publishing. The biggest was the announcement that the publisher—known mostly for their romance titles—was dropping its mass market publishing program and moving almost immediately to all electronic books (with the possibility of print-on-demand follow-ons for certain titles).
Now comes word that editorial director Leah Hultenschmidt and senior editor Don D’Auria have both been let go. According to Publishers Weekly, Dorchester President John Prebich said the departures “were part of Dorchester adjusting staff to its new operating plan. He said that the product in the pipeline for 2011 will be published and that Dorchester will continue to acquire books. Chris Keeslar remains on staff as senior editor.”
PW also said the company is going to “outsource” a number of functions and “expects to announce several new partnerships next week. Prebich earlier acknowledged that the move to an e-book/pod model was due to declining sales for print mass market paperbacks and growing sales of e-books.”
Author Brian Keene did some digging on his own, and reports that the company may have slowed—or possibly stopped altogether—filling orders from its warehouses. He also reminds readers that the departures of Hultenschmidt and D’Auria leave Keeslar as the entire editorial department (see this post).
In the mass market publishing business since 1971, Dorchester may be the oldest independent mass market publisher in the US. Most of their sf is published under the Leisure imprint, and they are also the distributor for Hard Case Crime.