The Canadian publishing scene was shaken yesterday by news that Toronto-based Key Porter Books’ operations are being dramatically cut back with 11 people losing their jobs. In a brief release, Harold Fenn, chairman of Key Porter Books, announced that the house’s parent company, H.B. Fenn, is introducing a “major restructuring process and a move to the Fenn headquarters in Bolton, Ont” with the Toronto office closing.
Fenn told PW that Key Porter has been struggling recently. “The last couple of years have been very challenging for us at Key Porter, I have to say. And this year is really no different. We are not achieving our budgeted numbers, returns have been excessive,” said Fenn. “We just had to finally bite the bullet and say as much as we would love to see this work under the present structure with 17 or 18 people in the operation, it just isn’t working and we need to make some changes that reflect the reality of today.”
Jordan Fenn will continue in his position as publisher of Key Porter Books. The other five remaining staff, including editor-in-chief Linda Pruessen, will begin work from the Bolton office starting on Monday. Key Porter Books, founded by Anna Porter and Key Publishers in 1979, was taken over by H.B. Fenn in 2004 when it acquired a controlling interest in the company.
Harold Fenn said Key Porter’s fall list is nearly complete and so all of those books will be published as planned, and they will have the support of a publicist and the marketing department of H.B. Fenn. The spring list, which he said had about 20 scheduled titles, however, will be cut to some extent. “I cannot today really tell you whether there’s going to be 80% or 60% of those published,” he said, adding that some of those decisions will be made once the smaller Key Porter team regroups. “We are downsizing the number of people and we will be downsizing the number of titles, and we’ll be looking at tightening up the categories as well.”
Key Porter has been publishing both fiction and nonfiction. It publishes celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay’s books in North America. In recent years, Jordan Fenn has also touted the company as the biggest publisher of hockey books in the world, creating partnerships with organizations such as the National Hockey League, the NHL Players Association, and Hockey Canada. Some of those titles have been published as Key Porter Books, others as Fenn Publishing books. Harold Fenn said that Fenn is a separate company that has been publishing books for about 28 years and it will continue with its own imprint.
“We will continue to support all of our authors with the same kind of efforts that we have in the past, it’s just that there will be fewer titles and few authors to work with,” he said.
