A Time to Every Purpose Under the Sun

The Wall Street Journal had an article on Saturday titled "Big Book Publisher to Reduce Its Offices":

Random House Inc., the world's largest consumer book publisher, is seeking to sublease as many as nine of the 24 floors it now occupies at 1745 Broadway ...

The story says that Random House hopes to sublet as much as 250,000 of the 645,000 square feet it occupies in its headquarters building.

... Random House (RH) currently has a 30% vacancy rate on its floors. Many publishers, including Random House, have had to lay off staffers in the past few years because of the poor economy and its impact on book sales ... Random House now has too much non-productive space for the publisher to ignore.

A Random House spokesman indicated that the unused space came about as the result of layoffs, but insists RH does not intend further reductions in staff.

I have to admit that I find this an encouraging sign that the Big Six are starting to recognize that their world is changing and they will need to change, too. Downsizing is a great place to start.

Go here to read The Wall Street Journal article.