Rowman & Littlefield has purchased Down East Books, formerly a subsidiary of Down East Enterprise. Down East Books will keep its Rockport offices, as well as editor Michael Steere and two sales representatives. The purchase involves Down East Books, Shooting Sportsman Press, Fly Rod & Reel Books and Countrysport Press but does not include Down East Magazine.
"We've been thinking about [this sale] since the beginning of the year," Bob Fernald, CEO of Down East Enterprise, told the Bangor Daily News. "We had a very good year in 2012... but when we looked at it, we knew that in order to grow the business we either needed a lot more money, or we needed to find someone else who did.... It's a difficult time to be a small publisher. You can either do a few books of uncompromising quality--which is the route we took--or you can publish lots of inexpensive, low-quality books and keep overhead down. That's not something we wanted to do, so selling to Rowman & Littlefield was the answer... we look forward to a long relationship."
