After a dramatic restructuring of Random House's assets that saw the fragments of Doubleday and Bantam Dell parceled out to the conglomerate's other publishing groups, the much-anticipated layoffs have begun, as the NY Observer reports cuts in the Random sub-rights departments.

(Actually, the company started letting people go before the official reorg—before Thanksgiving, even—but it was a lower-key process then.)

Other sources tell us this morning that they believe cuts in other departments are, how shall we say, more than imminent, and it was generally recognized among observers that the various executives in charge of absorbing the old Bantam Dell Doubleday crews could be making their decisions around this time—although most people held out hope that it would take until early January to sift through all the personnel and evaluate their experience, salary levels, and so on. We will of course update you as we can.

But there's good news, too: Dial Press editorial director Susan Kamil has been awarded the editor-in-chief position for the Random House imprint (colloquially known as "Little Random" to distinguish it from the overall publishing group), which she will run while continuing to oversee the imprint she re-launched at Dell in 1993.