Even though the national media has moved on from its daily coverage of events unfolding in Wisconsin, the impact of the political battles between Governor Scott Walker and public employees continues to reverberate in many ways for the regional book industry. Several publishers are expressing concerns that budget cuts to Wisconsin public libraries and school libraries will demonstrably affect their bottomlines, as such institutions will have significantly less funds to purchase books. And the University of Wisconsin Press has already lost three of its employees in the six weeks – two of them moving on to other publishing companies.
“We’re still in the process of deciding whether we have to lay off anyone,” Sheila Leary, UWP’s director said. The press is already printing fewer paper catalogs and may switch entirely to electronic catalogs in response to an order from the Univ. of Wisconsin administration for all departments to reduce their budgets.
On a happier note, both UWP and the Wisconsin Historical Society Press believe that two new releases will do better in the marketplace than originally expected. This month, UWP released The Strike: The Improbable Story of an Iconic 1886 Painting of Labor Protest by James M. Dennis. Orders for The Strike, which tells the story of a painting by Robert Koehler that became a symbol of class struggle and the issue of workers’ rights, have spiked in recent weeks. And next month, WHSP is reissuing The Labor Movement in Wisconsin by Robert Ozanne, originally published in 1985. Both books have been in the production pipeline for a while.
The press, says WHSP director Kathy Borkowski, intends to spotlight The Labor Movement in its fall catalog. Consumers are interested in understanding the historical context of the current political climate, she explained, noting that sales of two WHSP backlist titles have spiked since Governor Walker announced his “budget repair bill” in mid-February. Sales of Workers and Unions: A Labor History by Darryl Holter have quadrupled since the protests erupted, she disclosed, saying “It’s an older title, and we don’t see much movement on that as a general rule.” Workers and Unions was originally released in 1999. Sales of the 2008 release, Fighting Bob La Follette: The Righteous Reformer by Nancy Unger are already up 40% this year over last year, with the fiscal year ending in June. Both backlist titles have sold upwards of 1,000 copies to date.
One regional author whose sales may be negatively impacted by the current political maelstrom in Wisconsin is Kim Simac, whose books are published by the Great Northern Adventure Co. in Eagle River, Wis. Simac has written three picture books and two books for children about hockey. When Joan Belongia, the owner of Brown Street Books in Rhinelander, Wis., discovered that Simac was leading a recall campaign against Democratic State Senator Jim Holprin, one of the “Wisconsin 14,” she packed up a box of all of Simac’s books in the store and sent them back to her.
“I’m a retired teacher,” Belongia explained about her refusal to carry Simac’s books anymore, “I don’t know where we’d be without unions.”
