Morsels From New York Magazine's Publishing Article

This week's issue of New York contains the big "state of publishing" piece that the magazine's book man, Boris Kachka, has been working on for the past few months. Mr. Kachka leads with a charming scene in the HarperStudio office, where publisher Bob Miller and his staff are watching a video of unused books getting mulched in a shredder. Mr. Miller calls it "depressing"; marketing director Sarah Burningham says it it reminds her of Wall-E. Kachka goes on to suggests that it's only shops like HarperStudio—bold enough to try untested business models, eager to do a lot with a little, etc.—that can keep the publishing industry alive as technology continues to push paper further and further into the margins.

The best bit of reporting in the piece comes on page four, where we get a peek inside a Knopf editorial meeting attended by new Random House C.E.O. Markus Dohle. Knopf's staff didn't know Mr. Dohle was coming until their fearless leader Sonny Mehta—who, according to Kachka, "is said to have shrugged comically when he found out" about Dohle's predecessor Peter Olson leaving Random House—brought him in.

Dohle has been popping into editorial marketing meetings, something [his predecessor, Peter] Olson almost never did. At the end of July, Mehta brought Dohle as a surprise guest to a Knopf meeting. Looking over a sales spreadsheet, he muttered to Mehta, “This isn’t how the other imprints do it.” Editors who were called in during the meeting hadn’t all been told Dohle would be there. One such editor, herself a former executive, said of a book with disappointing sales, “It’s dead in the water. Don’t worry about it.” Another person in attendance says, “You could see Dohle’s eyebrows going, ‘Oh boy, that was candid.’ ” What was his take on the proceedings? Where would these little observations lead, and how would they affect the people in this room? No one yet knows.

Hot stuff, too, on Richard Ford's recent defection from Knopf to the Ecco imprint of HarperCollins:

Richard Ford left Knopf’s star editor, Gary Fisketjon, for Dan Halpern at Ecco (Binky Urban, the agent who handled Frazier’s deal, did this one, too). And, after 42 years at FSG, Tom Wolfe left for Little, Brown.

Fisketjon, renowned for his close friendships and even closer edits (Raymond Carver, Cormac McCarthy, et al.), was more than Ford’s editor—he and the novelist “would kill furry animals in the woods together,” as one colleague puts it. But doing business together had become tricky. Ford’s literary reputation and popularity had fallen out of alignment; his last book, The Lay of the Land, sold less than 100,000 copies, per BookScan. Slow-and-steady Knopf didn’t seem fazed, but the author himself was. He thought house enthusiasm had waned, and “he never felt the money was commensurate with the work that was produced,” says the colleague. It couldn’t have been easy when the Lauren Weisbergers of the world were getting better deals than he was. “He’s 64, looking for that one last score in the literary world.” Knopf offered Ford roughly $750,000 per book, at which point Mehta capped the money, according to the source; Ecco offered $3 million for three books.

Others say that Ford had simply grown unhappy with Fisketjon’s editing. Cormac McCarthy left Fisketjon, too, but he stayed with Knopf and had Mehta edit him. When Ford decided to leave, says the source, he left Fisketjon a phone message explaining his move. It was never returned. He sent a follow-up e-mail, which Fisketjon answered with a surly note. Only Ford and Fisketjon know what exact words were exchanged (and both refuse to comment on their relationship after the move), but Ford later told someone that “Gary has to learn he’s no longer in high school.” This was business, after all.

Last thing to mention: The photo on page three from Steve Rubin's non-retirement for Jane Friedman? This one.

The backstory is that Mr. Rubin, the publisher of Doubleday, and his co-host, literary scout Maria Campbell, had all the guests put up "Jane masks" as Ms. Friedman walked out onto the balcony where everyone was gathered. As we reported at the time, everyone dutifully did this, but the plan faltered because no one really knew what to say since "Happy Birthday" was not appropriate and "Congratulations" even less so. The point is: Ms. Friedman was on the steps leading outside from the top floor of Mr. Rubin's building when everyone put their masks up. And yet she is clearly in this (extremely creepy) picture! Right there, at 11 o'clock. She's holding a Jane mask in her left hand and looking sternly at the camera. Media Mob asks: What happened here!?