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Friday Project directors break silence

22.05.08 Alison Flood

The Friday Project directors Clare Christian and Scott Pack have broken their silence about the demise of the independent publishing company, laying out the reasons for its collapse and the thinking behind the deal with HarperCollins.

Writing an opinion column in The Bookseller this week, publisher Pack admitted: "The truth is that if we had sold more books and produced them more cost-effectively, then the business wouldn't have gone under." He continued: "Mistakes were made. These have proved extremely costly to both people within the business and, more importantly, to those outside it with a vested financial interest. When a company goes bust, creditors are often left out of pocket. That is certainly the case with TFP, but there is also the added weight of shareholders losing their investments and a number of authors now having no home for their books."

"We spent too much money on promoting ourselves," said Christian, in a feature in this week's Bookseller about TFP and the blog-to-book phenomenon. She also attributed the problems to "mismanagement in a lot of ways, bad luck I'm sure, and books not doing as well as we'd thought."

HarperCollins Scott Pack The Friday Project Home Alison Flood Clare Christian

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By Mike

"mismanagement in a lot of ways", "books not doing as well as we'd thought". Yet the three people at the top of the TFP ladder get lucrative positions at HarperC. Hmmmmm! If my management acumen and decision making skills resulted in a loss of £700k I doubt there would be many prospective employers tapping at my door. Go figure!

22 May 08 22:16

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By Annoyed Investor

At least maybe now they'll stop referring to Scott Pack as 'former waterstone's Buyer' and use the more up to date 'failed publisher'.

23 May 08 22:59

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By David R N Livesley - Woodstock Vermont

Perhaps Scott should just be referred to as....publishing opinion maker or POM for short? Personally I think they are all bloody good sales people to sell their little souls and get a job when their company seems to have so little worth. Good ol' H.C another wonderful coup.....

24 May 08 02:01

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