By MOTOKO RICH


For decades the New York publishing world promised a romantic life of fancy lunches, sparkling parties, sophisticated banter and trips to spots like the Caribbean to pitch books to sales representatives. If the salaries were not exactly the same as those on Wall Street, well, they came with a milieu that mixed high culture with pure Manhattan high life.

But that luxurious lifestyle seems to be winding down. Austerity measures are rippling throughout the industry as it confronts the worst retailing landscape in memory.


“This business was never meant to sustain limousines,”said Amanda Urban, a literary agent who represents Cormac McCarthy and Toni Morrison, among other authors.

Venerable publishing houses including HarperCollins, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Penguin Group, Random House and Simon & Schuster have all announced salary freezes or layoffs, or both. Simon & Schuster canceled its annual holiday party, held for the last few years at Tavern on the Green in Central Park and scheduled in 2008 for Guastavino’s, a fancy banquet hall in Manhattan. One division of Random House had pizza, beer and wine in a room off the cafeteria for its holiday lunch instead of going out for pricey cocktails. Across the city, editors with upscale taste are being asked to scale back on their lunch expenses.


Book sales have deteriorated since October, falling about 7 percent compared with the same period the previous year, according to Nielsen BookScan, which tracks about 70 percent of sales. That slide is driving much of the immediate cutbacks, but the publishing industry is also being convulsed by longerterm trends, including a shift toward digital reading and competition from entertainment options like video games and online social networking.


Ms. Urban said some of the more lavish practices could not be sustained by a slow-growth, low-margin industry that can’t charge luxury prices.“Books can only support a certain retail price,”she said.“It’s not like you have books that can be Manolo Blahniks and books that can be Cole Haan. Books are books. A book by James Patterson costs the same as a book by some poet.”


But the economic downturn is forcing publishers to scrutinize some of the industry’s oldest traditions. One ripe target: the international book fairs in London in the spring and Frankfurt in the fall at which publishers and agents gather, ostensibly to make deals. But in reality they spend much of their time going to parties and dinners.


Many houses that previously have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on flights, hotel bills and cocktail hours are planning to trim the size of the contingents they send to the fairs this year. For authors it means the prospect of smaller advances and fewer books being acquired. Other customs, like the costly practice of permitting retailers to return unsold books, are being examined.


Of course, longtime industry insiders have seen it all before. Michael Korda, former editor in chief of Simon & Schuster, recalled a period in the 1970s when his bosses banned editors from dining at certain restaurants.“And then after a while business got better,”Mr. Korda said.“And everybody went back to doing what they were doing before.”