Dorchester to their Authors

The following was posted on one of the loops that I receive daily. The forwarder wishes to remain anonymous but she did say the many established authors have left Dorchester. Also, Dorchester did not say this e-mail was not to be forwarded. I'm just posting this now and I'll put my two cents in at a later time.

Dear Anonymous Author:

Don, Chris & I have been working to contact as many people as we could
before sending out a blanket announcement regarding some of the new format
changes many of you have already read about. Unfortunately, news broke
online before anticipated.

Given the many changes in the publishing industry over the last several
years, Dorchester has made the decision to more tightly focus its
distribution models so that we may fully capitalize on the most profitable
emerging technologies.

Starting with September titles, we will be moving from mass-market to trade
paperback format. This will delay new releases roughly 6-8 months, but it
will also open many new and more efficient sales channels.

And we're pleased to say all titles will be available in ebook format as
originally scheduled. The substantial growth we've seen in the digital
market in such a short period-combined with the decline of the mass-market
business-convinced us that we needed to fully focus our resources in this
segment sooner rather than later.

Dorchester has always been known as a company ahead of the curve and willing
to take risks. As bookstores are allocating the bulk of their capital to the
digital business, it only makes sense that we do the same. Everyone keeps
hearing that the industry has to change if it's going to survive. We're
excited to be at the forefront of that change and will continue to keep you
posted on further developments.

And to help answer some of the questions you might have:

When will my book be coming out?

Ebook editions will be out in the month the mass-market was originally
scheduled. The trade paperback will follow roughly 6-8 months after. We
have tentatively rescheduled many of the Sept.-Jan. titles through June or
July 2011. But we're still working on books scheduled farther out.

Why the delay?

Some of the delay will be in reformatting the typeset mass-market so that it
better fits a trade size. But most of the extra time is so that the sales
force we're working with will have a chance to sell books in to the
accounts. Just like mass-market, stores will be placing their orders about
4-6 months before the books are printed.

I read in an article that these are print-on-demand. Does that mean they
won't be offered to the general market?

We've partnered with Ingram Publishing Services, who will be selling in
books to libraries, Borders, B&N, Books a Million and all other retail and
wholesale accounts that we've called on previously. But by having many more
sales reps, we'll also be able to target accounts, such as many independent
stores, who have not ordered our books in the past. Just as for mass-market
books, stores will place their orders and we will print to fill them. Books
will be on the shelves for readers to browse. However, using
print-on-demand technology, we will not have to keep as many books in
inventory incurring warehousing fees. Books will be available for reorder
just as they are now, but we will only have to print as many copies as we
need instead of a minimum of 5000.

What happens to backlist titles?

We're currently in the process of changing warehouses, but once set,
reorders will continue as normal. When a book goes out of stock, we will
make the determination of whether to reprint-just as we do now. Reprints
will most likely be in trade format, though we haven't completely ruled out
the possibility of some staying in mass-market.

Thank you for your patience and support as we make this transition.

Best,
Leah

Leah Hultenschmidt
Editorial Director
Dorchester Publishing