After struggling financially the last few years, the gay and lesbian publisher Alyson Books will be switching to an eBook-only model.
Publishers Weekly reports that parent company Here Media will handle the switch and publisher Don Weise will depart. As the company restructures, Here Media’s consumer marketing VP John Knoebel will serve as interim publisher. Earlier this year, author Michael Musto exposed the company’s problems in an essay about the publisher’s delays on publishing his new book.
UPDATE: Weise has issued his own statement about the negotiations with Here Media (complete release embedded below): “I worked for months to get a deal done—not just for myself, but especially for the many authors whose work has defined Alyson for the past 30 years. After shopping the press around to several publishers, it became clear that the only way to preserve Alyson was for me to assemble financing to purchase the company myself. But even after offering a price that I believe to be twice the fair market value, we were unable to come to an agreement.”
Here’s more from Publishers Weekly: “Over the next few days Alyson will be reaching out to the authors it has under contract and whose books they have not published to give them the option of getting their rights back or moving ahead with Alyson’s digital program … Alyson has about 24 authors under contract whose books have not yet been released.”