By all indications, there’s been another round of layoffs at Lucasfilm. This time it also affects the Lucasfilm Licensing division.
Hatchet day at #Lucasfilm and #LucasLicensing. Bad news: I got laid off. Good news: I got laid off!Look out, world, here I come!
— Stacy Arnold-Strider (@batsnaps) April 16, 2013
These layoffs are reportedly impacting individuals within licensing, marketing, and publishing. The first two make a certain amount of sense since Disney has huge licensing and marketing arms, but publishing would be a bit more out of left field as they do not have much in the way of in-house options on that front. Possibly the layoffs within that arm are confined to children and reference materials, which Disney can probably replicate. Adult fiction would be tougher.
UPDATE: Publishing not impacted
Sounds like the initial report was wrong on the publishing front. LFL’s Jen Heddle got in contact with Club Jade to clear things up:
@clubjade No publishing layoffs.
— Jennifer Heddle (@jenheddle) April 17, 2013
This makes quite a bit more sense. If Disney can do anything internally, it’s licensing products and marketing everything under their umbrella. Publishing is still something that they in theory have the framework to do entirely internally, but isn’t what I would call a strong suit. For now (and I suspect for a long, long while), the setup remains the same for Star Wars literature.