Kat Meyer has spoken in an article late yesterday with Calvin Reid of Publishers Weekly and shed more light on the sudden closure of new digital publishing venture, Quartet Press.
Meyer, one of the founders of Quartet Press, conceded that the financial structure of the business was flawed and ultimately would not work, and rather than struggle, it was agreed to disband the company. The realisation of these inherent flaws came about following discussions with digital vendors.
“…we didn’t want to compromise and lower the quality. We’re all a little shocked but we knew we had to do this now or it would have been even more disappointing.”
But WAS their business plan flawed? We’ll never know. This sounds like a failure of nerve to me–entrepreneurs must be gutsy, especially with new and innovative approaches. These people gave up before their plans and ideas had a chance to reach fruition. Now we’ll never know if they had something, something that could be emulated and improved on by others. And that’s a bloody shame…
Yes, they were flawed, and it was only when they spoke to digital vendors did they realize their business projection and sustainability and profit had no future. You don’t have to put your foot in the water to know its going to be wet. When the model and figures don’t add up, better call it a day than crash and burn. Ultimately, it would have caused more headache for them and their authors to continue with something they could not believe in.
I think we have actually learned more by them calling it a day before they made the mistakes. Kat and Kassia have been very open about things in a way few others in their positions would have been.