In the wake of the AOL-Time Warner merger, more divisions of the huge company are feeling the bottom-line pinch. Teen People Book Club, a co-venture between Bookspan and Time Inc.'s Teen People magazine, will be shutting down its operations over the next several months, and the company is also closing the trade operations of Time-Life Publishing.
"We're very disappointed," said TPBC editorial director Laurie Calkhoven of the club's demise. The club, which launched in January 2000, "brought in four to five times more new members than we expected," Calkhoven said, but, she added, "those members just were not buying books at the rate needed to sustain a club." Calkhoven said the club has stopped accepting new members, but will publish and mail its catalogue through July 2001 to honor commitments already scheduled to that point. "After July, we will probably do some sort of sale catalogue so that we can liquidate some of our inventory," she added.
Suppliers of that inventory, such as Nancy Pines, v-p and publisher of Pocket Books for Young Readers, are disappointed as well. "TPBC was such a great effort. Teens are a hard age group to pin down; it's hard to predict or influence their behavior. But TPBC seemed to be doing it, offering something for everyone. This is a great loss to everyone who participated."
Calkhoven and her TPBC colleagues, totaling seven people, will remain with the company and also stay together as a team. "They want us to keep our team together to be a new book club incubator of sorts," Calkhoven said. "The company is committed to testing lots of new book clubs."
The phasing out of the T-L trade book unit comes less than two months after the company pulled the plug on Time-Life Books' direct-mail division (News, Feb. 19).
As part of the streamlining effort that resulted in the closure of the direct-mail group, Time-Life Trade Publishing reduced its title output from 80 books last year to 50 this year and was integrated into Time Warner Trade Publishing, with unit president Neil Levin reporting to TWTP president Maureen Egen. Time-Life Trade, based in Alexandria, Va., released about 12 books to the trade market this year and about 38 through its custom-publishing arm, but the 13-person staff was told late last month that the unit was being closed. An AOL TW spokesperson said that a further examination of Time-Life Trade determined that its business "wasn't vibrant enough," prompting the decision to shut the operation.
Most employees' last day will be April 16, although Levin and possibly one other person will remain to help wind down the operation.
