Reader's Digest Cuts 60
by Steven Zeitchik -- Publishers Weekly, 5/12/2003
Reader's Digest, fulfilling a promise made last month to lay off 200 people involved with international operations, confirmed last week that it had let go 60 people from its Pleasantville, N.Y., headquarters, about 6% of the office's employees.
It is not clear how many had responsibilities connected to overseas operations, but four of those laid off were certainly domestically focused: they were editors from the RD Select Books division. The unit, which anthologizes books in genres such as mystery and romance and sells them via direct-marketing, now has eight editors and 17 employees. Among the departing editors is executive editor Paul Dinas, who once served as editor-in-chief of Kensington. Dinas, who joined RD in September 2001, said he'd like to remain in trade publishing.
A spokesman for RD said that despite the loss of one-third of its editors, Select Books plans on "the same number of series" and is merely "working to improve efficiency." The move seemed to echo what Hyperion head Bob Miller and other executives have described as publishing's trend of building "more revenue on less and less infrastructure." Is more money from fewer people what's going on here? Sighed Dinas, "I guess that's the new mantra."
