It was recently reported by PublishersLunch and Publishers Weekly that religious publisher Thomas Nelson is cutting about 10% of its staff, in part because they are cutting their title count by half. You can read CEO Michael Haytt's blog posting on the news.

In recent months I've been asked more than usual by authors and agents how the business is doing. While the Nelson announcement may be interpreted on the surface as bad news for writers, the insiders I know applaud this move. One of the strange realities for me and my colleagues is that while we love book publishing, and often have personal investment and devotion to the categories we publish in, we practice daily self-flagellation for overpublishing. (Well, I'm the only one who went out and bought a hairshirt over this matter.)

Why do we knowingly acquire too much stuff? Here at F+W, it's the bottom line. If you cut back on the number of titles, how will you reach the same revenue goals? Only by selling more of less -- a risky proposition in today's book retail environment. (Fewer people reading, flat sales.)

If publishers are in fact truly overpublishing, and we're crowding ourselves off the shelves (and it's hard to argue that we're not, when bookstores return titles to publishers if they don't sell in 3 months, in order to make room for new stock), then one hopes that a publisher gutsy enough to cut back will be rewarded by selling more of less.

Two caveats:
1. Perhaps publishing more titles is sometimes good/OK because it means more variety: more markets or audiences are served, more niches are served, and as The Long Tail phenomenon has shown, the world is moving in a specialist-niche direction, not a mass-market direction.
2. Creating fewer titles should give publishers the opportunity to give more valuable, meaningful time to each title especially during marketing/promotion time. (I think we all agree that publishers release far too much product for them to meaningfully support it all -- one of the biggest complaints of authors ... and editors.) One worries that a misguided executive, seeing the drop in titles, would jump on the chance to completely cut resources to the bone. (Less product, less overhead.)