Higher Returns, Lower Sales Bring Cuts at Multnomah

A restructuring at the religion publishing house Multnomah earlier this month meant layoffs for 24 of the company's 125 employees. Coupled with a significant drop in sales in 2002, shelved plans for a new building and a 40% reduction in the number of titles to be produced this year, the announcement prompted speculation about the financial health of the publisher of one of the fastest-selling books in publishing history, The Prayer of Jabez. But president and publisher Don Jacobson said the changes are more a reflection of economic realities than the company's financial picture, although he acknowledged that Multnomah lost money in 2002.

"We had double the returns last year than we did the previous year, as a percentage of business," Jacobson told PW. But the returns were on the multimillion-selling Jabez, the company's breakthrough title in 2001; that year's record-breaking sales were tempered by returns of the title in 2002. "In 2002, we had 20 titles selling in excess of 100,000, more than we've ever had before. We had more titles and authors performing at high levels, but the returns killed us."

Given the uncertain economic outlook during the first quarter of this year, Multnomah decided to focus more time and resources on fewer titles, which resulted in the layoffs, Jacobson said. "If you take a message to the marketplace, you're responsible for it," he added. "In publishing as many titles as we were, we didn't feel that we could be responsible for that message. [Our staff] hasn't been able to read all our own books, we were publishing so many. The reduction has to do with providing service to our authors and accounts and becoming better at transferring our passion for each message we publish."

Among those staffers laid off were two employees who joined Multnomah following the company's acquisition of certain assets of Loyal Publishing. The layoffs did not affect any senior officials, Jacobson said. "If you look at the percentage of cuts [in staff and titles], you can see they are not equal cuts. We're going from 125 to 101 employees and from 120 to 75 titles; that says we're going to be putting more people time into each book."