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By any measure, Algonquin Young Readers (AYR) has been a hit since it launched in 2011— curating a list of unique and award-winning middle grade and YA titles from a stable of celebrated authors and illustrators.

But despite that success, the imprint closed this week.

The announcement of the end of AYR sent a shock wave through the industry, as it became the third kid lit imprint to shutter in 15 months—joining Razorbill, which merged into Putnam Books for Young Readers in June 2023, and YA imprint Inkyard Press, shuttered by HarperCollins US in August of that year.

“It’s always disappointing when a beloved publisher gets shut down,” says Andrea Thatcher, publicity manager at Smith Publicity, Inc. “It makes the rest of the publishing world question, ‘If a house with a Newbery Medal can’t survive, who can?’”

Although a small house, AYR’s dedicated team became known for acquiring and championing a set of award-winning books, including Kelly Barnhill’s 2017 Newbery Medal-winning The Girl Who Drank the Moon and Yamile Saied Méndez’s Furia, which received the 2021 Pura Belpré YA Award.

The decision to discontinue AYR was made by the Hachette Book Group (HBG), which purchased Workman Publishing, AYR’s previous publisher, in 2021. AYR will be folded into Little, Brown Books for Young Readers (LBYR).

An LBYR spokesperson confirmed that the realignment would result in AYR, along with its backlist and all books under contract, being absorbed into LBYR effective September 23, 2024.

Although the spokesperson would not comment on staff changes, SLJ confirmed three AYR staff members were laid off in the reorganization. The restructuring at Hachette also led to layoffs at Little, Brown earlier this year.

AYR author Tracey Baptiste has been with the imprint for nearly a decade, since her first book, The Jumbies, published in 2015. Receiving the news of the closing “felt like immediate homelessness,” Baptiste says.

It was particularly hard for Baptiste, who lost her entire team of editors and marketers, all of whom were laid off under the reorganization.

When Hachette bought Workman in 2021, the contract included a three-year term to keep all Workman employees.

“The three years are up, but I don’t think anyone was expecting that they would dissolve the entire imprint, so that was a real surprise,” says Baptiste.

According to the LBYR spokesperson, the decision to discontinue AYR was made as part of Hachette leadership’s larger evaluation of the Workman Publishing business.

“The imprint closure and movement of AYR titles under LBYR has the same goal as other recent reorganizations at HBG, to optimize growth and ultimately get more of these titles into the hands of readers,” the spokesperson said in an email.

When imprints like AYR close, it’s typically because of sales.

“Traditional publishers rely on sales to pay for employees, pay for the books produced, pay the authors, and if the sales are not big enough? Things change,” children’s author Carrie Jones wrote in a blog post about AYR closing. “Sometimes it’s about personnel. Sometimes it’s about vision.”

But many authors and industry leaders are in the dark about why a seemingly successful imprint like AYR was shuttered, particularly since Hachette saw a 7.7 percent increase in sales in the first half of 2024, contributing to the 5 percent increase in revenue announced by its parent company, Lagardère Publishing.

“It’s a lot more question marks than answers,” says AYR author and Book Riot editor Kelly Jensen. “If they’ve posted such big earnings, why are they folding an imprint? Why are three people from the publishing imprint being laid off? I think a lot of the other authors feel similarly.”

One former Hachette employee who wished to remain anonymous says that the scrappy nature of AYR never fit the mold of the much larger Hachette.

“My feeling from people at AYR the whole time was, we don’t have a budget, but we’re excited about art, and we’ll worry about making money later; and that seemed to work really well until Hachette came in and said, ‘You have to fit our system,’ ” the former employee says. “It was a little bit of a culture shock for a lot of people and a bit of a rocky transition.’”

For AYR authors, the transition from a small house to a much larger imprint will be an adjustment.

“Little, Brown is a good team, but they have a very large list,” says the former Hachette employee, who adds that authors may be worried they will get lost as the small fish in a much bigger pond. “I’m sure that’s unsettling.”

LBYR is more like an ocean. It publishes about 200 titles annually, compared to AYR, which published about 15 frontlist titles a year.

“The entire [AYR] team, everybody knew the books,” Baptiste says. “There was real dedication to the longevity of those books. It wasn’t just, ‘Your publishing season is over, what’s next?’ They were always making sure the backlist was well cared for.”

Although Thatcher agrees that some less successful titles and authors might lose support if their editor isn’t with the company anymore, she says it really won’t be that much different from how most publishers treat backlist titles, where bestsellers earn the majority of attention.

The 17-author, 18-book “The Kids in Mrs. Z’s Class,” series led by author Kate Messner, was being published by AYR over three years.

“When I first heard that AYR was closing, my primary concern was for the kind, talented publishing professionals who are losing their jobs as a result,” says Messner. “From an author’s perspective, changes in publishing are an unfortunate fact of life, and they do always produce some anxiety. But I’ve had a chance to meet with my new editor at Little, Brown, and we had a wonderful conversation. She’s great at her job, and she loves books and kids as much as I do, so I’m truly looking forward to working with her.”

As for “The Kids in Mrs. Z’s Class,” the first two books were already published, and it “remains on track to continue with four more titles this school year,” according to Messner.

What comes next for former AYR authors is largely unknown for everyone involved, but losing even a small imprint like AYR will impact the field as a whole.

Author and former literary agent Nathan Bransford says that whenever an imprint closes, whether at a major publisher or an independent house, a sort of game of musical chairs occurs as the industry reshuffles publishing slots.

“It means fewer places to send projects, potentially fewer offers on the table to help with negotiating, and a bit of a crunch that can happen,” Bransford says. “Sure, there are still lots of places to go to, and great publishers putting out new works, but as an industry, you want to see more slots as opposed to fewer slots.”

Some see it as a hit to the efforts to bring more diversity to the industry.

“We all see the backlash that’s going on in the industry where perhaps a few years ago, a lot of publishers were really getting behind diverse voices, publishing a wider array of experiences,” Thatcher says, but now, “we’re seeing less of that, and it’s very sad.”

Whether it’s AYR, Inkyard, Razorbill, or the next small imprint to close or get merged into a larger house, consolidation is having a major impact across the publishing industry.

“With imprints closing, we have fewer editors, less people in other departments supporting those books and authors, and the remaining editors who have inherited those books have even more of a work pile,” says freelance editor Shelly Romero.

“This all makes it so that maybe less books are published, less books are taken on, the authors who were seen more as maybe a risk aren’t considered. It creates a domino effect.”

Adds Jensen, “Consolidation is a loss for everybody. It’s a loss for authors. It’s a loss for readers. And it’s a loss for people who want as wide a range of reading options as possible.”

Although Thatcher doesn’t think the consolidation is good for the industry and doesn’t like fewer gatekeepers making decisions, she adds, “the democratization of publishing has also led to a lot of noise and a lot more competition for titles to get above that noise.”

The former Hachette employee says the problem isn’t necessarily the number of books being published, but the lack of people to shepherd them along.

“Editorial can acquire as many books as you want, but if you’re not adding to your marketing team, your sales team, how are you going to make it work? There are fewer editors to submit to, and you’re chucking more books into an already full pot.”

The ripple effect of AYR’s closing remains to be seen. The imprint’s current books and those under contract will be published, and carry the AYR name, through winter 2025. The first list of AYR-acquired titles to have LBYR’s logo will arrive in the summer of 2025.

“It’s probably going to take a couple of seasons to see how this shakes out, because there are a lot of books in the pipeline acquired by AYR that are now Little, Brown books,” Baptiste says. “So, we’ll have to see what happens once those books are fulfilled and what the new books Little, Brown brings in look like.”

Andrew Bauld writes about education. Kara Yorio contributed to this article.