A little more than one year after embarking on an expansion program, Berkeley, Calif.'s Wildcat Canyon Press is retrenching. According to publisher and editorial director Tamara Traeder, the company has laid off "a few people" from its staff of 10 and has cut its spring list to four titles; Wildcat will publish 10 books this fall.
Traeder said because of the weak market, she felt the company needed to "step back a bit and become leaner and meaner." The major change will come in Wildcat's PageMill Press imprint, which the company revived last year in an attempt to reach the Christian market (News, Oct. 2, 2000). Wildcat will release only two PageMill titles next spring, compared to seven this season. "We need to focus on books that can sell to multiple markets," Traeder explained. The flagship Wildcat imprint will continue to publish books in the quality-of-life segment as well as the popular Girlfriends series.
