The Bookseller.com

13th October 2008

GAYLE FELDMAN

Gayle Feldman is The Bookseller's US correspondent.

Au revoir, Jane

06.06.08

Shocked and stunned. Those are the words that were used over and over again in New York on Thursday as the news spread that Jane Friedman had resigned from HarperCollins. It was carried in the pages of The Wall Street Journal, a sister company to HC since Rupert Murdoch took control in December, and also in The New York Times. Unusually, the only named source for both was the web media gossip site Gawker.com, which first broke the news Wednesday evening. Now everybody knows it is official.

Already, Wednesday night, emails were circulating in New York about Friedman's departure. That evening and very early Thursday morning, she reportedly had conversations with people outside HC about what was going on.

A source within HarperCollins told The Bookseller that when the word came down Wednesday, staff spent an hour not just stunned but terribly fearful, not knowing what was coming next. When they heard that Brian Murray had been tapped to replace his boss – according to today's Wall Street Journal online, he was offered the job on Monday - despite the shock and sadness that remain, they were terribly relieved.

At BEA in Los Angeles on Saturday, this reporter sat down for a half-hour interview with Jane Friedman. I have known her twenty years and in 1998 wrote the first major profile of her after she took over as HC CEO. I wrote a second in 2000 for The Bookseller just after Eddie Bell's services were suddenly no longer required in the UK. During the LA interview, she gave absolutely no hint that this was coming.

When the news first hit, many people assumed that it had been news to her as well, that as she moved about BEA and played host to a large party, she was ignorant of her fate. The consensus now is that this was probably not the case. Rather, Friedman has been the consummate pro at putting on a great show – always one of her strengths and talents, as people who know her well attest.

Murdoch spends a lot of time in LA. Peter Chernin, his number two, is there full time. Did Friedman meet with one or both while in Los Angeles?

There are indications that this may have been in the works for even longer. Friedman's contract had been up for renewal, and reportedly she had planned to tell the world that she was resigning at the end of the month, to coincide with the end of HC's financial year. Gawker forced the company to telescope that time. It is the same sort of jumping-the-gun that occurred when news of Peter Olson's departure from Random House began to leak at LIBF. Although there was far more time between that leak and official confirmation of Olson's departure, it wasn't enough to allow him to finalize his future plans.

It is rather unusual, on the very same morning, to have both the announcement of a CEO's departure and the announcement not just of her successor, but of the new structure of the senior executive tier. It takes time to put such a re-organization in place. It also takes time to craft careful press releases communicating it all to the world. Approvals must be sought.

Why she resigned is not yet clear. Murdoch would have been aware of the rumours that had surrounded Olson for some time. Did they in any way help persuade him that it was time for a change at HC? Certainly youth has prevailed in both companies: Markus Dohle is thirty-nine; Brian Murray is forty-one.

Most people point most particularly to the mess that was the Judith Regan imbroglio as one of the major factors in Friedman's departure. She inherited Regan, she did not bring her into HC. The two women were far from pals. Regan's reputation for tempestuousness preceded her. And Regan was very much her own boss, with a direct line to Murdoch.

Yet some sources say that Friedman not only signed off on the O J book deal but evinced enthusiasm. When it imploded, she made herself scarce. Only Friedman and Regan and Murdoch know precisely what happened and how involved each of them was.

The Regan business was a very public embarrassment. It was also expensive. In the end, precisely how it impacted Murdoch's view of Friedman is impossible to know, just as it has been impossible to find out what the settlement with Regan was.

Then there is the matter of HC not having the greatest of years, and Murdoch's habit of using the guillotine when the numbers are not what he wants. He has long had a reputation for ruthlessness and quick decisions. He was the man who, after all, once parted company with his own son.

Friedman is a realist and knew that at some point her run would come to an end. Several knowledgeable sources say that the situation is more complicated than Regan or accounting numbers or Friedman simply having been pushed. As one person confided, "I don't think it was completely done to her."

Olson had double pneumonia; Friedman has had a bad respiratory infection for several months. It is not Olson-bad, however. Parallels only go so far. People did not react to Olson's departure the way they are reacting to hers. Jane Friedman is the opposite of Peter Olson; she is an engaged, extroverted publisher to her bones with deep, deep roots in the business.

At Random House, another non-publisher has been brought in, and there has been persistent word that he will bring in others, probably from Germany. There is also the sense that people at Random House will be questioned about things they have not been questioned about for a very long time.

The good news for HarperCollins is that all of the people who are now running the company have come from the inside. The good news is a large measure of continuity, although of course Friedman's departure signals that there will be change.

Brian Murray comes from the financial consulting world. He arrived at HC from Booz Allen. In 2001, in his early thirties, he was sent to Australia, presumably leaving temporarily to be groomed to run something bigger. He is that unusual creature today, a financial person who was able really to "get" the book side of publishing. He is well liked. Some people are even asking, is it possible that he turned out to be too good a #2?

Susan Petersen Kennedy runs Penguin in the US. There was shock, a long time ago, when she was fired from Ballantine. Phyllis Grann ran Putnam and then "PenguinPutnam" in the US before her, and there was shock when she got the axe. Carolyn Reidy now runs S&S. Women have come a long way in US publishing, but Jane Friedman came the farthest. She has worked at two companies her whole career. Most people reckon that she cannot but have another act.

The US book business is mature. Unit growth in the trade sector has been small or flat or worse. As one executive put it, the demands and the vocabulary being used in the business right now are "downright weird. There is the relentless pursuit of growth. You would think we were in the technology industry. The word ‘stability' is never used."

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