Atlas & Co. Forced to Postpone Spring Books

by Calvin Reid -- Publishers Weekly, 10/3/2008 3:22:00 PM

In what may be a preview of the financial crisis’ effect on small publishers, Atlas & Co., an independent house that partners with both HarperCollins and W.W. Norton, was forced to delay its Spring 2009 list due to the financial crunch. Atlas & Co. founder and publisher James Atlas acknowledged that the house postponed six titles originally scheduled for the Spring until Fall 2009.

“We’re small and we’ve been hit by the same financial crunch you’ve been reading about,” said Atlas, who described his current dilemma as “the lot of an independent publisher. I've been through all this before. Nobody said it would be easy.” Atlas was quick to point out that the house is still publishing its fall list that includes such books as Rimbaud by Edmund White; Madame De Stael by Francine du plessix Gray and Like Eating a Stone: Surviving the Past in Bosnia by Wojciech Tochman, all published, he said, to impressive reviews.

The books that were postponed are: A Sixties Reader edited by James Atlas, Embedded: A Father’s Quest for the Truth about This Son’s Mission in Iraq by Darrell Griffin, Sr., The Lost Cellos of Lev Aronson by Fances Brent, Sentenced to Life: A Story of Redemption by Kenneth E. Hartman, The Other Side of Silence: A Biography of George Eliot by Brenda Maddox and An Educated Man: Reading Moses and Jesus by David Rosenberg.

Atlas emphasized that he intends to publish all the delayed books. “I have a loyal board and I’ve been in talks with potential investors,” Atlas said. “I expect a happy ending, or rather, a happy non-ending, to all of this.”

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