Politics & Prose & Partnership Problems

by John Mutter, PW Daily -- Publishers Weekly, 3/21/2005

The failed attempt of Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade to take on a partner to succeed them at Politics & Prose, the Washington, D.C., bookstore, is profiled at length in a front page story in today's Wall Street Journal.

The gist of the problem at the 1999 Publishers Weekly Bookseller of the Year: new partner Danny Gainsburg was perceived by the fiercely independent and proud staff as too businesslike and aloof. Worse, rumors abounded that he would cut staff and scrimp on store traditions. Last year, after Gainsburg kissed an employee on her birthday, which led her to resign shortly thereafter, the staff rebelled. Gainsburg, who was made a full partner in 2002, has been bought out and is no longer associated with the store.

In his telling of the tale, Gainsburg said that the staff reacted coolly to him from the beginning but that Cohen and Meade said things were going well. For her part, Meade told the Journal that she had expressed misgivings.

This morning, Cohen told PW Daily although the staff's negative perception of Gainsburg was a serious problem, she and Meade had made the decision to change the partnership because, as she put it, "We realized there was an incompatibility. We realized the store wouldn't be well led by Danny."

In addition, something that the Journal didn't touch on, it's nearly impossible to imagine anyone, particularly a younger man with an entrepreneurial background, fitting in easily with a pair like Cohen and Meade, who in their very different styles (one open and brash, the other properly reserved) are steely smart, independent and opinionated--and complement each other so well.

But Cohen said that the triumvirate worked well together. "Maybe we were too focused on making that part of it work," she said. It took "a long time," she said, to realize that Gainsburg "came across to the staff as ham fisted and disrespectful."

Cohen praised the staff for "moving in and doing a fantastic job" to make the transition after Gainsburg's departure work. "We had a very good year last year," she added, "And we're continuing to have a good year this year."

Cohen's lesson from that experience. "We should have asked many more questions" about their new partner and his background, she said. Also, "we wouldn't have turned over as much authority as we did."

Unfortunately Cohen and Meade are back where they were in 1999, when they were named Bookseller of the Year and expressed a desire eventually to ease their way out of running the business on a day-to-day basis.