Responding to media reports that the company had shut down, Key Porter Books issued a brief statement Friday afternoon announcing that it was “temporarily suspending” its publishing operations. “Key Porter Books is considering a number of restructuring options, including the sale of certain titles in its valuable catalogue of Canadian works, all with a view to continuing as a leader in the Canadian publishing industry,” the statement said. “In the meantime, Key Porter Books is supporting its authors through the continued marketing and sale of previously published works and distribution through [parent company] H.B. Fenn and Company Ltd.”
Authors are understandably nervous about the company’s future, particularly because a fall restructuring had already cut 11 jobs and forced the publisher to close its downtown Toronto office and relocate to H.B. Fenn’s headquarters in Bolton, Ont. At the time, five staff as well as Jordan Fenn were to remain in their positions, but author Kevin Sylvester said that the third book in his Neil Flambé series waits in his laptop for an editor because editor-in-chief Linda Pruessen is no longer with Key Porter. Sylvester said that the series is so far still with Key Porter, but his agent is negotiating with the company to determine what will happen to it in the future. He added that he has yet to be paid for 2010 sales.
Author and historian Mark Bourrie’s nonfiction title The Fog of War was due to be published on Jan. 25, but its release has been put on hold. In a blog post titled “I need to go home and puke,” the distraught Bourrie posted a letter from Jordan Fenn that apologizes for a breakdown in communications that meant that Bourrie was not informed until Jan. 5 that his book’s publication had been suspended.
Neither Key Porter chairman Harold Fenn or Jordan Fenn were available for comment today, but following the restructuring announcement in the fall Harold Fenn told PW that Key Porter had been struggling. “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,” he said at the time.
Key Porter has been publishing both fiction and nonfiction, and in recent years, Jordan Fenn has also promoted 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.
In July 2004, H.B. Fenn acquired controlling interest in Key Porter Books, which was founded by author Anna Porter and Key Publishers in 1979.
