When word began to spread earlier this week that Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment (CSSE) had filed for bankruptcy, some members of the book business might have wondered how it would impact the book publishing business of the same name. The answer is, not at all.
While CSSE chairman Bill Rouhana Jr. is also one of the owners the publishing group of the same name, that group—along with a pet food company—is part of a separate corporation, Chicken Soup for the Soul LLC. For that business, said Amy Newmark, editor-in-chief and publisher of Chicken Soup for the Soul Publishing and the author of a number of Chicken Soup titles, “It is business as usual.” Although CSSE and CSSP cooperate in various ways, “we’ve always been separate companies,” Newmark stressed.
The Chicken Soup for the Soul franchise, originally built largely around the books, was acquired by Rouhana and Bob Jacobs in 2008, who had plans to expand the popular brand into different businesses beyond books (Jacobs left Chicken Soup in 2012). That ambition led to the 2015 creation of CSSE, a company that now owns a number of advertising-supported video-on-demand companies, including an eponymous brand, Crackle, and Redbox. Analysts point to the 2022 purchase of Redbox, which operates the red-colored, self-serve machines that rent or sell DVDs, as a mistake that forced the company to take out more loans while demand for DVDs was declining.
While CSSE goes through the bankruptcy process, Newmark said, she and the CSSP team are finishing up the publisher’s Christmas titles and preparing the 2025 list, which will feature a heavy dose of its most popular subjects: cats, dogs, and miracles. The CSSP book formula has stayed largely the same since it was introduced in 1993, featuring 101 stories from individual contributors around one subject.
This year, CSSP has changed up its formula a bit, as it moved into the adult coloring book segment. One of this year’s Christmas books, The Magic of Christmas Coloring Book, features 37 stories on one page, with art suggestions on the accompanying page.
Since its heyday in the late 1990s and early aughts, CCSP has cut back its list to 10–12 titles annually, with 10 planned for this year, Newmark said. The publisher’s current backlist now stands at over 250 titles, which continue to sell well on Amazon. The company’s titles are still distributed by Simon & Schuster to the general trade.
This story has been updated to reflect Bob Jacobs’ role in Chicken Soup.