SAGE Publishing India’s publishing division shutting its doors soon

on Aug 01, 2022

SAGE Publishing, a global publishing house which specializes in academic books, journals, library and reference products, and services, is closing its book publishing division in India.

In an email to employees in India on Thursday, CEO Blaise R. Simqu wrote, “We have recently made a very difficult but carefully considered decision regarding SAGE India's book program. For many years, our attempts to make national book publishing at SAGE India commercially viable have faced major challenges and the pandemic has only made them more difficult. What we have reluctantly and unfortunately concluded is that despite all these efforts, the 's combination of low price points and lack of an established adoption market, along with other external factors (including the current COVID situation) has proved an impossible obstacle for us despite our best efforts in recent years... while remaining committed to our mission of supporting the dissemination of useful knowledge and educating a global community, we have decided to divest SAGE India's book program.”

The letter, signed by Simqu and Sonia Kumar, CEO of SAGE India and CFO, further noted: “We would like to emphasize that this decision is very specific to books and follows our successful domestic and imported magazine publishing, marketing, and sales of imported Sage books India, which will continue to be an important part of the international book program, unaffected...'

The redundancy process has begun, and almost 70 staff have already been notified of their redundancy. “SAGE has always been a great company to work for. But the release process was brutal and humiliating. People weren't given a chance to speak, were forced to sign non-disclosure agreements, and were told to hand in their resignation letters effective immediately," a company insider said on condition of anonymity. Others expressed concern that this decision will reduce space for the original scientific publication from South Asia.

SAGE was founded in New York in 1965 and is currently headquartered in California. The India Branch was founded in 1981 by Founder and President Sara Miller McCune along with George McCune and Tejeshwar Singh. The publishing house specializes in books from the fields of social sciences, medicine, technology, natural sciences, and humanities.