WSOY expected to drop more personnel next week

Publishing business increasingly uncertain

Sofi Oksanen

Jorma Kaimio

Veli-Pekka Elonen

Anna Baijars

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The decision by WSOY Publishers to sever its ties with popular author Sofi Oksanen is to be followed by personnel cuts. About 30 employees are expected to be trimmed in connection with co-determination talks with personnel next week.
      The cutbacks are taking place because WSOY is having the same problems that are affecting the whole publishing industry: the internet is encroaching on sales of nonfiction books, electronic books are around the corner, and the increase in book titles is dispersing the whole sector.
      Continued infighting and negative publicity are not helping the situation.
     
When Jorma Kaimio became CEO of WSOY in 2000, everything appeared to be going well for the company.
      Authors signed to the company, such as Arto Paasilinna, Ilkka Remes, Jari Tervo, and Kari Hotakainen dominated the lists of best-selling authors.
     
The future looked fairly bright, as the publishing house managed to attract promising new talent, such as Sofi Oksanen, who had achieved a cult following with her book Stalin’s Cows in 2003.
      Many of the star authors worked with Harri Haanpää, who was recognised as a skilful editor, and also as a charismatic, but cantankerous person, who was known to use his position in the company as a way of promoting his own interests.
     
The status of star authors was raised by the changes in the book business. The publication of books used to be an expensive and labour-intensive endeavour. Only publishers that were on solid ground could cover the expenses and wait for the harvest to ripen.
      Modern technology means that producing books is relatively easy and cheap. Authors are increasingly capable of getting their books into shape for printing largely on their own, which could eventually call into question the need for having big publishing companies.
     
In some countries star authors have literary agents, which take competitive bids from publishing houses. Big enough names can also choose their own book editors. A similar trend has been seen in Finland as well.
      WSOY has tolerated Harri Haanpää largely out of fear that he might go to a competitor, taking his own authors with him.
     
Leaving the company have been the Siltala brothers Touko and Aleksi, who set up a new publishing house under their own name in 2008.
      Joining them were some of WSOY’s top authors, such as Kari Hotakainen, Pirkko Saisio, Leena Lander, and Hannu Raittila.
      Personal relations between the Siltala brothers and Haanpää were poor, making it impossible for them to join forces.
      To stem the bleeding, WSOY decided to offer Jari Tervo a contract for his next three books, two of which are still to be written.
     
After Kaimio, the next CEO of WSOY was lawyer Veli-Pekka Elonen.
      Named as his boss was Jacques Eijkens, the Dutch director of the new Education and Books business group of SanomaWSOY.
      Whereas previously the director’s door was always open to the authors, now most of the Finnish authors couldn’t even pronounce his name. However, Eijkens also did not know much about the authors.
     
Elonen was hardly a book person himself, and there were many sighs of relief last year when he was replaced at WSOY by Anna Baijars, who had made a name for herself at another publisher, Gummerus.
      At the first autumn opening, she spoke like a publisher should, raising a glass to the authors, who are the backbone of publishing.
     
The honeymoon of the new CEO was short-lived. The poor atmosphere among staff became apparent to outsiders as well. Many expressed their views anonymously, but Sofi Oksanen felt so safe that she openly spoke her mind about Baijars and head of communications Tarja Virolainen.
      “They have perhaps not understood how big a publishing house they are heading”, said Oksanen last October. At the same time Oksanen and 11 other WSOY authors issued a letter describing the state of the publishing house as “chaotic”.
     
Although Oksanen has plenty of admirers, her abrasive style has raised some eyebrows even among supporters.
      Besides, Baijars’s superiors undoubtedly started wondering if all stupidity really resided in the director’s office, or if fault might be found elsewhere as well.
      The first of the rebels to go was Jyrki Nieminen, head of the Johnny Kniga subdivision of WSOY. Haanpää was allowed to stay because of his ties with Oksanen and Jari Tervo.
     
In early May the publisher announced plans to cut 20-30 employees. At the same time, Haanpää was reassigned.
      “He can concentrate on editing and supporting his authors”, Baijars says.
      In other words, Haanpää was put in a monster closet. On Tuesday, it was time for Sofi Oksanen to go.
     
Looking at the books listed in the WSOY autumn catalogue, one is struck by the nearly total absence of names that helped launch WSOY into the new century - Paasilinna, Hotakainen, Saisio, Snellman, Raittila Lander... As Tervo is taking a year off, the only remaining member of the old guard is Ilkka Remes.
      A dispirited atmosphere prevails at WSOY headquarters in Helsinki. Some of the employees fear for their jobs, while others hope to retire before heads start rolling, and others still are yearning for a time when the company might start again from a clean slate.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  WSOY and star author Sofi Oksanen part ways (16.6.2010)
  BREAKING NEWS: WSOY Publishers drop Sofi Oksanen (15.6.2010)

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