I just read this post yesterday after posting the news on A Motley Vision that WindRiver had purchased Mapletree. So I called JB, the owner of WindRiver, and was told that your information is NOT correct. WindRiver has NOT purchased Spring Creek.
I don't know what exactly this means. Perhaps you could check on your end to see if there is an error in the information you got?
I try so hard to make sure I don't pass on industry gossip and misinformation. I could have sworn I got an e-mail from WindRiver announcing their acquisition of Spring Creek. But apparently, I had a brain burp and that was not the case at all. WindRiver acquired Mapletree, another small publisher.
So I contacted Chad Daybell, owner of Spring Creek, and here is his reply, copied and pasted straight from his e-mail back to me:
Hi there!I apologize to Chad at Spring Creek, to WindRiver, and to all my readers for disseminating incorrect information here at this blog. I will make sure in the future that I get my facts right.
Thanks for your email, and I'm happy to clear up any confusion. Spring Creek hasn't been acquired by another company. Spring Creek still exists, but we haven't produced a new title since August, and we aren't accepting manuscripts. We have shut our warehouse and Brigham Distributing is handling our distribution. . .
I feel we did our best, but after the Deseret Book/Seagull merger, . . . as the other publishers have also seen, their plan to "vertically integrate" their operations left us on the outside. We still received invitations for their catalogs, but the catalog prices increased to the point we were actually losing money when we advertised because of all of the returns they would send back as soon as the catalog period ended. Of course, once we stopped advertising, our books entered the Dead Zone, which you have explained so well.
So I guess the succinct answer is we (as a company) are barely breathing . . . but we aren't dead yet.
Chad
3 comments:
I just received a birthday gift (I turned 19 in case you're wondering). A book, "On the Roller Coaster Called Motherhood," by Janene Wolsey Baadsgaard and published by Spring Creek. It's an older release, but Spring Creek books are still out there available for purchase. Maybe we can help a little by looking for Spring Creek titles to purchase.
Thanks for clearing up the information. I feel bad about Spring Creek. I don't know Chad, but I've heard such good things about him and his company.
I didn't realize WindRiver had purchased Mapletree. WindRiver published my picture book and I had a very positive experience working with JB.
I'm so said about SC. Chad is one of my favorite people in this industry and I was so pleased with the quality of the books he and his company produced. I hope that he can find another way to be involved in this industry as his generosity, true encouragement, and overall support and ability would be sorely missed otherwise.
If you ask me the really sad part is that the LDS products industry has become so dependent on Deseret Book that no one else can serve the market!
I don't see how that is good for anyone, not even for Deseret Book (in the long run).
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