If you haven’t heard that the publishing world is imploding with the rest of the economy, then I think you’ve been living under a rock.  Or just not into publishing, one or the other.  It’s not as news-making as the Big Three wanting a bailout in order to escape insolvency but if you’re a writer, it’s certainly big enough.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt halted adult novel acquisitions last month, or so it was grossly rumored (per the HMH spokesperson) as I read on Agent Kristin’s blog.  She’s been reporting on this stuff for the past month or so.  If you don’t know what that means, it’s really quite simple.  No touchy.  HMH will no touchy your work.  They ain’t buying nothing.  Apparently the children’s department is still acquiring and the spokesman did say the news was taken too far, that they were still acquiring but under a tighter pen, but it’s still daunting news.

Well, Publisher’s Weekly has more news out that people in the publishing biz are dropping like flies, all at HMH and their divisions.  They’re consolidating their departments in order to save money.  Good for them, bad for the rest of us.  For writers it means getting an even smaller chance to get published with an HMH imprint and for readers, it means, in a year or so, less by the way of HMH publications to read.  The catalogue is shrinking.

We are in dire straits and no one is being left untouched (unless you’re one of the Big Three and get to fly around in your Lear Jets asking for billions in taxpayer money bailout).  Our chances of publication have just slimmed that much more.  A random blog I read (hell if I could remember which one now, blasted sieve of a memory) had a post that highlighted reasons it’s great to be a writer in a recession (mainly very little monetary output and maximum creative input) and that’s not to be taken lightly.  There’s never a bad time to be a writer (in theory) but when the pickers get picky, you just have to up your game.

Not that you were slacking off before and not that this is an excuse or anything because you’ve always done this, but now is the time to strive to write even better than you did before.  The competition’s huge and there are fewer medals to win.  You have to be better in order to get that coveted spot.  You might have thought you were good before.  Now it’s time to supercede that.  You don’t have a choice.

These are not good signs but we don’t have any choice but to work with them.