It seemed like an innocuous writeup in Publishers Lunch. Bulfinch Press, the TWBG imprint that specialized in art, photography and other coffee table-style books (including Galleycat Ron's THE STEWARDESS IS FLYING THE PLANE) would be properly folded into Little, Brown in the wake of Hachette's acquisition and publisher Jill Cohen's departure back in April. And by "properly folded" that means "ceasing to exist beyond Fall 2006," according to LB publisher Michael Pietsch, who went on to add that the tag "a Bulfinch Press Book" would be added to future titles.

Problem is, that whole thing about scaling back to a single, dedicated editor for the list? The news that four titles under contract would be cancelled and that future output would be "significantly diminished?" Turns out the folks at Bulfinch found out all this news along with the rest of us - by reading Publishers Lunch (though efforts to get further information from those still working at the imprint at the moment went unanswered, be it by email or telephone.) Which begs the question: if you're going to deep-six an imprint, can't you at least wait to tell people before firing off a press release about it?