Skull Crushing?

I hate to see one of the good indies become, well, unindied, but I guess it's bound to happen and no amount of petitioning can keep part of my utopian vision intact.  From Galleycat:

After last week's announcement of the massive restructuring of Perseus - leading in part to layoffs, imprint cancellations and the formation of a new venture by Charlie Winton - now comes a new announcement that Winton, Shoemaker & Co., LLC has acquired Soft Skull Press. This is their third acquisition this year. In February of 2007, they acquired Shoemaker & Hoard from the Avalon Publishing Group, and earlier in May they acquired Counterpoint from The Perseus Books Group.

As with the Counterpoint transaction, the Soft Skull transaction is expected to close in June. As announced last week, when the transactions close the company will be renamed Counterpoint, LLC. Soft Skull will remain as an imprint of Counterpoint. Soft Skull's Publisher Richard Nash will join the company as an Executive Editor and will also maintain the title of Editorial Director of the imprint. Nash will acquire for both the Counterpoint imprint as well as continuing to acquire for the Soft Skull imprint. In the fall 2007 season, titles acquired by Soft Skull will be published under the Soft Skull imprint and will be distributed by PGW. Beginning in winter 2008, all Counterpoint and Soft Skill titles will be distributed by PGW.

We'll have to keep our fingers crossed this one turns out okay.

Comments

[TJ]

Wow. That's huge. Looks like Nash is retaining a bit of control. I gotta say, good for Soft Skull. At a different point, they might have been smashed up rather than swallowed.

[R Ellis]

Here's my Utopian vision: Nash sticks to his standards and is loyal to his authors, but multiplies their readerships and makes them some money. Could it happen? We can hope...

[michael]

Charlie Winton has been indie for 30 years. Jack Shoemaker, for 40. The company Winton founded, PGW, almost exclusively distributed independents. Jack founded North Point and Counterpoint. This is phenomenal news. No one is getting swallowed. It's more like a combining of the best of east and west coast independent publishing. Nash is retaining a lot of control and will now have even more resources.

(disclosure: my first novel, http://www.radiantdays.com>Radiant Days, was published by http://www.shoemakerhoard.com>Shoemaker & Hoard.)