Catapult Book Group to Be Sold as Publisher Ends Operations

Catapult Book Group, the independent US publisher behind Catapult, Counterpoint Press and Soft Skull Press, is being sold and will wind down its operations on 30 October 2026, according to a statement from its unionised staff reported by Publishers Lunch. The group’s recently acquired imprint Hawthorne Books & Literary Arts is also part of the business.

The Catapult Workers Collective said the sale covers the company’s assets only, and that staff had been told “continued employment with the prospective buyer is not an option”. The buyer has not been publicly named.

What Is Happening to Catapult?

According to the workers’ statement, carried by Publishers Lunch and Shelf Awareness on 23 October, the deal is an asset sale rather than a takeover of the company as a going concern. That typically means a buyer acquires the books, rights and backlist but not the staff or day-to-day operations, which explains why employees are losing their jobs even though the imprints’ titles may live on.

The Catapult Workers Collective voted by what it called an “overwhelming majority” to join UAW Local 2110 in June. The union said it is negotiating severance for staff. The Los Angeles Times reported that about 16 forthcoming titles scheduled through spring 2027 now face an uncertain future, with authors waiting to learn whether a new owner will publish them.

• Imprints affected: Catapult, Counterpoint Press, Soft Skull Press and Hawthorne Books & Literary Arts.
• Operations end: 30 October 2026.
• Type of deal: sale of assets only.
• Buyer: not publicly named.
• Staff: told they will not be kept on by the buyer; severance being negotiated through UAW Local 2110.

Who Owns Catapult?

Catapult was created by the founders of Electric Literature and Black Balloon Publishing and operates within Unlikely Collaborators, a nonprofit founded by Elizabeth R. Koch. The group brought Counterpoint, a long-established literary house, and Soft Skull under the same roof as Catapult’s own list.

Its authors have won major honours, including an International Booker Prize, an Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and a National Book Critics Circle Award, and several have been National Book Award finalists.

How Have Authors Reacted?

Writers have paid tribute to the group, and in particular to Dan Smetanka, Catapult’s editorial director. “As someone who has been in indie publishing culture since the ’90s, Catapult was a holdout of an old world,” the novelist Gina Frangello told the Los Angeles Times. “Dan ran things the way they used to, in the storied, fabled days of publishing before everything went corporate.”

Meredith Maran, whose novel A Theory of Small Earthquakes was published by Counterpoint in 2012, said the house “humanized publishing, revered its authors”. Tod Goldberg said he hoped the buyer would keep the authors in print, “but what’s lost here is not merely a publishing house, but a culture of excellence, of risk taking, plus a dash of punk rock”.

What Does This Mean for Independent Publishing?

The closure removes a well-known home for literary fiction, essays and debut writers at a time when the US book market is dominated by a handful of large corporate publishers. Independent presses often take risks on new and unconventional voices, and their backlists can be valuable to buyers even when the operating business is not.

Key questions now are who the buyer is, whether forthcoming books will still be published on schedule, and whether authors will be able to keep working with the editors who acquired them. We will update this story when the buyer is named. For more on pressures facing writers and publishers, read our reports on the authors suing Meta over AI training and Pip Adam’s Ursula K. Le Guin Prize win.

Featured image: “Timeless Books”, by Lin Kristensen / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0. Illustrative photo, not of Catapult books.

Sources

• Publishers Lunch — Catapult Is Being Sold; Operations Will Wind Down on October 30 (23 October 2026).
• Shelf Awareness — Catapult Book Group to Be Sold, Cease Operations (23 October 2026).
• Los Angeles Times — Catapult Books is being sold; Los Angeles authors are mourning (23 October 2026).
• Publishers Weekly — Catapult to Be Sold, End Operations (23 October 2026).