This year, retailers are offering deals that promise to feed a crowd on a budget.

“A traditional holiday meal for 10 can come in at under $75, with a full spread of popular dishes totaling $73.09,” financial services company Empower wrote. People said they expect to spend more than that estimate: $137 in all for a Thanksgiving meal.

To keep costs down, the people surveyed said they plan to cook fewer desserts, cut portion sizes, skip meat or choose a meat that costs less than a whole turkey, use fewer pricey herbs and spices, use more affordable store brands — or skip Thanksgiving dining all together.

Regarding opting out, almost 57% of people surveyed by Empower worried Thanksgiving will be too pricey to cook this year, but a greater percentage, 73%, said Thanksgiving dinner is “still worth the cost despite higher prices.” The payoff: time with family and memories, people said.

Here are a couple of samples of Thanksgiving grocery deals from retailers.

Generously feeding a crowd, on a budget

If you and your family are cooking Thanksgiving dinner this year for a crowd, how much do you plan to spend per person?

Walmart is betting it can beat that.

Its Thanksgiving meal basket — a collection of essential ingredients for a classic Thanksgiving  — comes out to just under $40 and is designed to feed 10.

Not every Walmart store sells groceries. Now through Christmas Day, first-time pickup or delivery shoppers can get free express delivery on their basket, the store said.

Along with the Thanksgiving meal basket, the retailer announced three new “1-click” meal collections that are new this year. One is a gluten-free Thanksgiving meal, one is a “Balanced Thanksgiving swaps” meal with “high-protein swaps like Goodles Mac & Cheese and cauliflower mashed potatoes and ingredients to make a high-protein pumpkin dessert,” the online description says. The Prime Rib meal basket includes Choice Angus beef, salad, potatoes and wine.

Here is a sample from this year’s classic Thanksgiving basket:

• A 13.5-pound Butterball turkey, priced at 97 cents a pound
• Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup
• Kinder’s crispy fried onions
• canned green beans
• Great Value dinner rolls
• five pounds of russet potatoes
• fresh cranberries
• baby carrots
• artisan mac ‘n’ cheese by Great Value
• ingredients for pumpkin pie

Those and the other items come out to more than 33 pounds of ingredients.

Walmart’s meal is almost half of what financial services firm Empower says a Thanksgiving dinner for 10 will cost this year.

Last week President Trump touted Walmart’s Thanksgiving dinner basket price — which at less than $4 per person is markedly cheaper per person than last year’s per-person price of less than $7 — as evidence that grocery prices are dropping, thanks to his policies. What was not mentioned: the two baskets have different brands, ingredients and quantities, rendering the comparison not valid.

Federal food-price price data are not available for recent months due to the government shutdown, but recent data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis show prices are up, stable or down year-over-year, depending on the categories. Whole chicken and bacon prices are higher, the price of white potatoes and field grown tomatoes is roughly even, and white bread and butter prices have dropped.

Unique items for Thanksgiving and the holidays

Trader Joe’s does not have sales. The company says its approach is to offer value without needing coupons or discounts.

This year, the purveyor of interesting and unusual goodies is selling four items that are fitting for a Thanksgiving table, or fall dining in general. They’re also unique to Trader Joe’s, a brand representative said in an email.

The Nantucket Style Cranberry Pie, $6.99, a New England holiday classic, got a glowing review from food writer and dietician Christina Manian. “And let’s just say, it’s now a holiday season must-have in my household,” she wrote. “It’s perfectly sweet-tart, has a crunchy, tender crust, and is perfect for keeping in the freezer for last-minute celebrations.” Tossing on a dollop of whipped cream or a drizzle of chocolate takes it to the next level, she added.

The store is also selling Sparkling White grape juice, made from Spanish Chardonnay grapes, for $3.99. Adults may remember feeling all grown up when they got to sip sparkling apple cider as kids. This drink is less sweet than some ciders, so it might appeal to kids and adults alike.

“This Sparkling Grape Juice is a non-drinker’s holiday dream come true,” the product’s website says. It has 59 grams of sugar per 12 ounce serving. Martinelli’s sparkling cider, in contrast, has 31 grams of sugar in an 8-ounce serving.

Trader Joe’s is also selling a Bourbon Vanilla Bean Syrup for $4.49. The ingredients are simple: caramelized invert sugar syrup (invert sugar is a type of sweetener), concentrated bourbon vanilla extract and vanilla bean seeds.

A fourth item is an eight-ounce wheel of double cream brie for $4.49. While brie is not unique to Trader Joe’s, this version is made in Wisconsin, not France, and costs significantly less than other bries. “Our Double Cream Brie’s bloomy rind envelops a smooth, rich, creamy cheese, delivering exactly what you want from a classic Brie,” the product’s online description says.

A price check of double cream bries at other San Diego retailers shows an 8.5-ounce round of French brie priced at $7.99 and a brie made in Wisconsin on sale for $7.99 for eight ounces, both at Ralph’s. Aldi sells a domestic brie, also eight ounces, for $4.39. Target’s costs $5.99.

Given that it’s mid-September, retailers are rolling out products for the next winter big holiday: Christmas.

On Tuesday, Target launched a four-pronged approach to its holiday shopping experience.

Prong one: new items. Target is debuting more than 20,000 new items for holiday shoppers, many priced at $5 and most priced under $20. In a news release, the chain announced that is selling twice as many holiday items as last year, and more than half of those are Target exclusives.

Among the items for sale this year, the store highlighted pop-culture collaborations (“Stranger Things,” “Wicked: For Good”), as well as fashion, beauty gifts, Wondershop brand holiday decor and hundreds of exclusive toys.

Prong two: discounts. From Oct. 5 to 11, the store will have its “Target Circle Week” sale, and then it will kick off a series of weekly sales with prices discounted by up to half, starting Nov. 1. Its “Circle Week” sales are for the store’s membership program, which is free to join. Look for discounts on “everyday essentials, fall style picks and holiday gifts,” a news release said. To see what’s on sale, head to its deals page: target.com/c/deals/-/N-atb3q.

One note: Target’s Circle Week overlaps with Amazon’s fall Prime Big Deal Days sale, scheduled for Oct. 7 and 8. So keep an eye out for other sales that week, as more retailers try to compete for your holiday bucks.

Prong three: fast delivery. The chain is rolling out next-day delivery over the coming weeks. San Diego County’s 28 Target stores are behind those in San Francisco and Los Angeles in this respect. Those cities already have next-day delivery. But a silver lining: San Diego is one of only 35 markets getting this next-day delivery service.

Next-day delivery is free for orders over $35 for shoppers who are not part of the store’s loyalty club. For Target Circle 360 members, a paid membership program, or for purchases made using a Target Circle Card, there is no minimum order amount.

Prong four: hiring seasonal workers. “To support its current team, the retailer will hire seasonal staff, offering competitive pay and benefits, flexible scheduling and more,” the news release said. Beginning Sept. 24, visit targetseasonaljobs.com to apply for seasonal positions in all 50 states across Target stores and supply chain facilities.

Seniors in 41 states are projected to have more expenses than income during their golden years, putting them at risk for outliving their retirement savings, according to a new study by Seniorly, an assisted living online marketplace. The amount they’re missing, on average, over the course of their retirement years: $115,000.

In California, the gap between projected income and expenses for retirees is far higher: $337,000.

Along with the Golden State, three other states — New York, Hawaii and Alaska — have the nation’s highest retirement gaps, where people’s income likely can’t keep up with expenses. That’s no surprise: All are places with high costs of living.

But states with a lower cost of living didn’t necessarily mean a better financial situation for their seniors, in this analysis. Mississippi, for example, is second the cheapest to live, according to Seniorly’s findings, but it ranks No. 12 for a retirement gap. Its retirees need $162,000 in retirement savings to match their expenses over the course of retirement. That is almost $50,000 larger than the national average gap. West Virginia and Alabama are in a similar position, with some of the nation’s lowest costs during retirement, but savings so low they create a gap.

The study also found that retirees in some states are likely to have money left over when they die, also known as having a financial surplus. The greatest surplus: Washington.

The big picture: not saving enough

The study looked at “what they’re projected to spend during retirement and what they’re likely to bring in from Social Security, savings and investments,” Christine Healy, Seniorly’s report author, wrote.

On average, the study found that people are likely to live 18.2 years past 65. To fund their needs and wants in that almost 20-year span, Americans have saved, on average, $762,000. Expenses are projected to be $877,000, leaving a $115,000 gap across all states and the District of Columbia.

Seniorly pulled data from government sources and analyzed life expectancy at age 65, income, net worth and cost-of-living metrics by state, by using data from the Centers for Disease Control, U.S. Census, Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Social Security Administration.

California’s high medical and housing costs in particular tap retirement income, the report said.

One more reason people are likely to outlive savings: longevity.

“States with higher life expectancy are more likely to outlive savings: At age 65, Hawaii seniors can expect to live another 20.6 years. Despite having the highest income of $1.32 million, Hawaii was the No. 2 most likely state to outlive savings, due to a combination of longevity and high expenses,” the report found.

Mississippi, West Virginia, Alabama and Louisiana, with the country’s lowest life expectancy according to the CDC, all have retirement gaps higher than average.

Retirement cushions

The outlook is rosier in nine states, where retirees are expected to have surplus savings.

1. Washington: $146,000
2. Utah: $121,2000
3. Montana: $43,000
4. Colorado: $38,000
5. Iowa: $32,000
6. Minnesota: $23,000
7. Maryland: $13,000
8. Kansas: $8,000
9. South Carolina: $2,000

The sound financial health of retirees in Washington state is “driven by relatively high projected income and moderate expenses,” the report says.

Washington’s monthly health insurance premiums, in one study by Value Penguin, an insurance trade publication, were lower than average — $543. The state’s housing prices, though, are on the higher side compared to the U.S. average.

Minnesota, Utah and Washington hit two high notes. Their retirees are likely to have a financial surplus, and they have among the longest life expectancies in the U.S., ranking in the top 12.

State by state

Are places with smaller gaps or with retirement income surpluses necessarily better places to retire? That is not an obvious conclusion.

The study yields some thought-provoking juxtapositions between cost of living, expected earnings and longevity.

In Hawaii and New York, residents are projected to have higher than average retirement incomes, but higher than average expenses or longer lifespans due to things like diets and access to health care may mean those nest eggs won’t last long enough.

In Georgia and South Carolina, incomes in retirement are less than half those in retirees in Washington and Hawaii. But people in these southern states are expected to enjoy a savings surplus — albeit a very small one for South Carolina. This cushion could be due to lower costs and lower expenses, but also lower lifespans, meaning people there may have fewer years to work through their savings.

Yet in other states, such Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama and West Virginia, some of the nation’s shortest lifespans and lower costs of living still leave a gap, where people may outlive their savings, because incomes are also lower there.

New York’s retirees have lower projected incomes than average, $670,000, but some of the nation’s highest expenses, $1.12 million, which explains why it ranks No. 1: $448,000 gap between income and expenses.

States where retirees are expected to enjoy a financial surplus — meaning their projected income will likely be greater than their expenses — tended to have retirees with some of the highest incomes.

One more takeaway from the report:

“Despite its poor overall ranking, seniors in No. 50 Hawaii actually have the biggest financial cushion in the country, with a projected income of $1.32 million over their retirement years,” Seniorly’s Healy wrote. “At the other end of the spectrum, seniors in No. 43 Louisiana and No. 40 Mississippi have the smallest nest eggs, with projected retirement incomes of just $479,000 and $488,000, respectively. No. 35 West Virginia, No. 41 Arkansas and No. 36 Alabama are also near the bottom, with projected incomes of $526,000 or below.”

Not worried enough?

Northwestern Mutual conducts an annual survey about retirement progress and attitudes. It recently found that Americans think they will need $1.26 million to retire. With that goal in mind, it found out how confident different generations are that they will hit that target.

Baby boomers were most confident: 40% said they do not have saved enough for retirement.

Gen Z were slightly more concerned, with 51% answering they will somewhat or very likely outlive their savings.

Millennials and Gen Z respondents were most worried, with 57% and 56% respectively answering they fear they’ll outlive their retirement savings.

“Meanwhile, more than a third (35%) of Americans say they have not taken any steps to address that potential outcome,” the Northwestern Mutual study found.

“For the first time ever, Petco is launching ‘My Human,’ a category for the two-legged customers who boldly embrace the pet-obsessed lifestyle,” the company announced.

These hundreds of items include clothing, throw pillows, planters, games and other “cheeky, giftable finds,” a news release said.

The “In My Cat Mom Era” T-shirt pays homage to both Taylor Swift and felinity. A slouchy sloth planter is one easy way to bring a sloth into your home, because those pets are illegal in California without a special permit.

Petco’s website shared one statistic that explains this expansion: In a February survey, 90% of “pet parents” said they want to buy pet-themed human products.

The store has also launched its Halloween line, with more than 400 items. These include a “viral jumbo pumpkin spice latte” dog toy that is 46 inches tall and costs $60 and a $6 cowboy costume for your bearded dragon.

Barbo is the CEO of Trust & Will, a San Diego company that simplifies the creation of estate planning documents by drafting documents with its lawyer-vetted software.

Eight years later, Barbo is married and his family has grown.

So has his company. Trust & Will, based in San Diego’s Bankers Hill, has helped more than 1 million families make estate plans, Barbo said in an interview from his Dallas home office.

“Normally you pay thousands of dollars up front to do this with an attorney, or hundreds to thousands of dollars for those updates, for that ongoing guidance,” he said. “This is the democratization of estate planning.”

It has raised more than $80 million from venture capital and corporate investors including Moderne Ventures, American Express, AARP and Northwestern Mutual. Last year, the company became “cash-flow positive,” startup speak for hitting profitability, and then secured a Series C round of capital this year. It employs around 110 people, up from around 80 in 2023.

And last week, it announced the launch of a new AI-powered platform called EstateOS, which Barbo says will make estate planning even easier, more efficient, more personalized and more broadly accessible. It also turns Trust & Will — one of several companies that digitally create estate plans — into what Barbo says is “the first company to launch an AI-integrated estate planning platform at scale, specifically designed for both consumers and financial professionals. While others may be experimenting with AI, EstateOS is the first comprehensive system combining Trust & Will’s proprietary estate planning software with embedded OpenAI-powered tools to streamline creation, review, and updates of estate plans.”

New tools, an AI boost

Using proprietary software and OpenAI, EstateOS delivers four features that are “intelligent upgrades of previously manual or slower processes,” Barbo said, who co-founded the company with Daniel Goldstein and Brian Lamb.

Some of the new features will appeal to U.S. consumers — only 31% of which have a will, according to a company survey of 10,000 people — and others will appeal to the company’s industry targets: financial planners, life insurance agents, nonprofits and attorneys, he added.

One feature, called PlanScore, does what its name suggests: It “scores” estate plans with a rating system that helps customers find blind spots and figure out where their estate plan needs buttressing.

Another is an AI assistant that lets users ask questions and have the answer served instantly. Instead of digging around to find out who was named as a guardian, Barbo said, you can ask who the guardian is and get reminded that it is your mother-in-law.

A third feature is document extraction, which will summarize and mine user-submitted documents for useful or actionable data and workflows. This could be especially useful for people who have drawn estate plans that are “just sitting in a box in the closet.”

The last feature streamlines communication — and client prospecting. The “Connected Networks” tool brings together parties connected to an account, including executors, beneficiaries, attorneys and financial advisers, into a shared platform. That can make deed transfers and notarized transactions run more smoothly, and also make it easier for those professionals to build their contact lists.

Down the line, Barbo said a fifth service will keep track of life’s seismic events, the kind where an estate plan update could make sense, such as marriage, divorce, a new baby, a home purchase — and alert users when they should amend something.

Pricing to create a will or trust remains the same. An individual’s will-based plan starts at $199 and a trust-based plan starts at $499. Couples are charged an extra $100, and updates cost extra. Optional memberships at different pricing tiers give access to the EstateOS and other features. Attorney support is included in some plans or can be purchased as an add-on.

The estate planning startup’s plans

For its first eight years, Trust & Will was one of several in a crowded digital legal document and estate planning marketplace, all of which turned estate planning from a costly investment to something that could be scratched off one’s to-do list with a few clicks and a spare hour. LegalZoom and Rocket Lawyer are the bigger names, but there’s also WillMaker.com and the company that would win wittiest estate planning domain name, if that were a thing — FreeWill.com.

The National Council on Aging recommends these online tools, saying “If an attorney isn’t in your budget, an online will-making service can be a good alternative.” Among the five companies it recommends, Trust & Will is crowned “most user-friendly.”

In estate planning, the use of AI is a topic of interest for attorneys, according to the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel. A free video series explores practical and ethical issues around generative AI in estate planning. “Resistance to the coming of AI is futile,” one speaker, a law professor, said last year. Lawyers, he added, “should keep abreast of the changes in the law and its practice, including the benefits and risks associated with relevant technology. So accordingly, you have an obligation to yourself, your clients, and the profession to become acquainted with and proficient with the use of AI in your estate planning practice.”

Barbo’s 2017 pitch to investors succeeded: His company won $5,000 in seed money. Today he is eyeing the biggest prize for a startup —  to take the company public.

By any chance, had he used the federal government’s voluntary program, E-Verify, to authenticate the legal status of his workers, a reporter asked him. No, said Cattaneo, the owner of multiple Buona Forchetta restaurants in California’s San Diego and Orange counties. “There’s a lot of concern with privacy.”

So how did he know if all his employees are legally authorized to work? “We get presented with papers,” he responded. “Nobody can know for sure if everyone is legal.”

As raids by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers continue to intensify at workplaces across California, often exploding into confrontations between agents and the public, it’s a pressing question facing most employers, now more than ever.

In places like San Diego County that rely increasingly on immigrant labor, how do businesses truly know for certain if their new hires are legal in the eyes of the law? And could they even survive, especially in sectors like leisure and hospitality, construction and farming, without using undocumented workers to staff restaurant kitchens, clean hotel rooms, mow lawns, and harvest fruits and vegetables?

Even President Donald Trump, who in recent weeks has doubled down on ICE raids of businesses — from Home Depot parking lots to car washes — has acknowledged the urgent need for immigrant labor when he called for what turned out to be a temporary halt to an immigration crackdown on farms, hotels and restaurants.

In a recent post on his social media platform, he declared, “Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace.”

While the government’s E-Verify system is regarded as an increasingly reliable — although not infallible — way of weeding out undocumented workers, few businesses use it, for a variety of reasons. For one, it’s not federally mandated. And it’s considered by many businesses to be more burdensome, vulnerable to error, and, as some suggest, probably too effective in removing the cheap and plentiful supply of undocumented workers on which the U.S. economy relies.

“Why would employers use it if they know that the workers they are hiring are unauthorized, and the reason they’re hiring them is because there are not enough U.S. workers in the first place,” said Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow with the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank. “In reality, unauthorized people are employed all the time. So E-Verify would defeat that purpose.”

What began in 1997 as a pilot program through the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act eventually morphed into E-Verify in 2007.

In California, more than 321,000 business locations were using E-Verify as of March, according to the program website. That amounts to about 18% of employer establishments in the state, based on calculations using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A public records request seeking information on E-Verify participation in San Diego County was filed with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, but a response was not received in time for this story.

While E-Verify may be considered the gold standard by the federal government for properly authenticating new hires, employers still have multiple options for accurately confirming on their own the legal status of their workers, say human resources experts. Whatever system an employer embraces, though, it cannot address the reality of a narrowing labor pool of legal residents, analysts counter.

“Our economy is dependent on immigrant workers,” Chishti said. “And since we don’t have an immigration system that would allow people to come legally, we then become reliant on unauthorized workers.”

The current dependence on immigrant workers has evolved over decades, against a backdrop of steadily falling U.S. birth rates, an aging workforce, limited pathways to legal residency, and the reality that certain low-paying jobs simply hold little appeal for U.S.-born workers.

“Even if you raise the wages of picking tomatoes in our farms by 100%, we still would not have U.S. workers willing to do those jobs,” Chishti said. “Some of the jobs are so inherently backbreaking, to put it mildly, that U.S. workers just would not take them. So those industries — since the cost would be so high, we would lose them all. They would go abroad.”

While San Diego County has long been a region of immigrants, that’s especially so for certain sectors of its economy. Foreign-born residents account for roughly 40% of workers at lodging businesses; 26% at restaurants; and 60% at landscaping services companies, according to U.S. Census Bureau data, which doesn’t distinguish between documented and undocumented workers.

Those percentages are likely to rise, given San Diego’s recent population growth trends. Last year, the county would not have grown were it not for a 22% surge in immigration.

Hiring is ‘like the Hunger Games’

Several San Diego employers interviewed for this story requested that they not be identified when discussing how they hire their employees, out of fear of drawing the attention of federal immigration officials. One hotel operator said, “We have a target on our backs now.”

A longtime restaurateur with multiple venues in San Diego County said his company has chosen not to use E-Verify because he feels he is already complying with the law. The reality, he said, is finding enough workers to staff restaurants remains challenging, even as hourly pay has increased above minimum wage.

“Hiring has been like the Hunger Games the last few years,” he said. “We’re spending thousands of dollars a month on ads, and we’re getting slim pickings. Sometimes they come in with an ID, some come in with no papers and we tell them they’re not eligible to work.

“I’m just trying to keep the business afloat with the least number of hurdles while being legally compliant. But if they were to make E-Verify mandatory, I don’t know what would happen. It would be very dangerous because it would make a lot of people have a hard time opening their doors.”

Under federal law, both the employer and the employee have to take steps to ensure a worker is authorized to work in the U.S. For every worker they hire, employers have to complete an I-9 form, which is used to establish a worker’s identity and right to work, and employees are required to show proof that they are allowed to work in the U.S. This has been the law since 1986.

In some cases, one document is enough to prove someone has the right to work. The list of permitted documents includes a U.S. passport, green card, and a foreign passport with an I-94 form, which is a record of the person’s entries into and departures from the U.S.

Another way to prove eligibility to work is to provide two types of documents: one that establishes identity, such as a driver’s license, and one that establishes someone’s right to work here, such as a Social Security card, a Native American tribal document or a document from the Department of Homeland Security.

To review the documents and be sure the I-9 is filled out correctly, employers can do a manual check or they can submit copies of the documents to E-Verify, a free online government tool that cross-checks the information on an I-9 form against government databases, including the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Social Security Administration records.

Employers can still rely on other resources for employee authentication, says immigration lawyer Teodora Purcell.

“Major providers include The Work Number (operated by Equifax), LexisNexis, TrueWork, Checkr’s I-9 verification services, and various background screening companies,” she said. She added that employers might choose private providers for several reasons, including more comprehensive services that “go beyond basic work authorization to include income verification for lending or housing applications.”

While some employers say they shy away from the federal system because they suspect it’s not entirely reliable, the accuracy is said to have improved significantly in recent years.

“In a time of rampant document fraud, E-Verify checks government databases to verify employee documents, reducing unauthorized employment,” said U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesman Matthew J. Tragesser in an emailed statement. “E-Verify consistently receives high marks from users and maintains a nearly perfect accuracy rate, while requiring no special software or additional costs to employers.”

He pointed out, though, that employers still have the legal obligation to “ensure employee-presented documentation reasonably appears to be genuine and relates to the person presenting it.”

‘Why would you expose yourself?’

In California, local governments cannot require businesses to use E-Verify. Federal contractors and in some cases subcontractors are an exception, as are a handful of states. But some business owners still choose to opt in.

Using E-Verify as a fail-safe tool for ensuring legal hiring seems like a no-brainer, says Chad Cline, co-owner of the Waterfront Bar & Grill in San Diego’s Little Italy and several other dining venues. He says a third-party human resources company handles that for his businesses.

“I don’t understand why you wouldn’t. I understand the labor pool is smaller, but everything is competitive,” Cline said. “In 2020 when I couldn’t find anybody, we were looking in prisons at that time, but they still have to check all the boxes. Why would you expose yourself? I feel like everybody will be looking at their kitchens now and double-checking, and if they feel exposed, they’ll be addressing it however they can.”

Phil Blair, the co-owner of Manpower, a prominent San Diego staffing agency, says he’s well aware of today’s hiring challenges but that would never keep him from using E-Verify.

“First, it gives employers the cover they need to prove they are following the law by checking government records that the employees they are considering hiring are legal to work in this country,” he said. “This should not be an ‘if you don’t want to hear the answer do not ask the question.’ Our company has been asked (by some companies) to not E-Verify employees that they want Manpower to hire on their behalf. Huge red flag warning and not the level of clients we want to serve.”

Employment attorney Anthony Zaller says his clients, which include restaurants, are increasingly becoming more receptive to using E-Verify as a form of risk mitigation that overrides the perceived burden — a change that has taken root over the past year, he said.

“I think some proactive business owners have been saying, ‘I’m just going go through the I-9 E-Verify process and know 100% that the documents those employees are providing to me are authentic and they’re authorized to work in the U.S.,’” said Zaller, the founding partner of the firm Zaller Law Group. “It takes this risk out of the equation that somebody lied to you when they’re applying for the job or filling out the I-9, and they could be caught up in an ICE raid.”

Even with E-Verify, though, it appears some businesses may still find themselves in the crosshairs of an immigration crackdown. A recent raid at an Omaha meat production plant where immigration agents took dozens of workers away in buses, puzzled the owner, who said he uses the federal verification system for hiring employees. When he protested to the agents, their answer, according to an AP news report, was the system “is broken.”

Legal liability

If a business is found to have undocumented employees, the question arises, is it the employer who’s culpable or the workers — or both?

For workers, the penalty for giving false immigration or identity documents to an employer can include prison time or deportation.

But there’s also an obligation of the employer to do its own due diligence when hiring. Under federal law, a business can face sanctions for knowingly hiring and employing unauthorized workers. That was the case last week when the former general manager of an El Cajon metal coating business was sentenced in federal court for a misdemeanor criminal charge related to the hiring of undocumented workers. He received one year of unsupervised release and was ordered to perform 50 hours of community service and pay a $10 special assessment.

The sentencing came three months after heavily armed personnel from ICE and Homeland Security Investigations detained workers at the facility. Three company employees were charged with felony counts of making false attestations on government work authorization forms.

No charges have been filed yet in connection with the recent raid at Buona Forchetta. The search warrant in support of the raid alleges that documents presented by some employees, namely green cards that are issued when an individual becomes a lawful U.S. resident, “showed obvious signs of being fraudulent.” Telltale signs, the warrant said, were inconsistent fonts and holograms, poor fine-line printing, and photographs of poor quality.

On the Immigration Services website explaining acceptable documents for employee identity and authorization, it’s noted that the department redesigns the permanent resident card every three to five years to guard against fraud. It also points out, however, that cards with previous designs remain valid until their expiration date.

Clarke Ramsey, who owns Le Perv Landscape, said he checks to see that I-9 forms are filled out properly and match the documents workers turn in.

“That’s all that’s really required at this point,” said Ramsey, whose company was founded in 1978 and now employs 35 workers. One red flag he looks out for is if someone’s name does not match the paperwork that’s submitted. Even as he is aware of raids by ICE becoming more prevalent, he’s not more interested in using E-Verify, he says.

“There’s kind of two sides to that,” he said. “As long as we are following the law, I don’t feel there’s any potential liability for us, if someone has produced false papers that are good enough to fool us. So I’m not too much worried about us.”

Similarly, longtime restaurateur David Spatafore insists he’s sufficiently compliant with the laws governing hiring so why would he need to use E-Verify as an extra step in what he says is already a cumbersome, time-consuming process.

“We have nothing to worry about. If someone gave us false documents they created and passed through the system and we get called out, we still have done everything we needed to do legally to employ that person,” said Spatafore, whose company, Blue Bridge Hospitality, includes several Coronado dining venues, as well as Liberty Public Market.

“When you hire someone there’s an element of trust, so if they give me a driver’s license or Social Security card, there’s an implicit trust that the document is good. If you hand me something and the ink is bleeding off, and the name is off, we’re not going to take that document.”

From a legal standpoint, employers have to straddle a delicate line, says employment attorney Dan Eaton. On the one hand, they need to take steps to ensure they’re hiring legally authorized workers. On the other hand, if they question prospective hires too aggressively about their paperwork and legal status, they risk being found guilty of discrimination.

“Whatever system you use, you have to use it uniformly and if you’re subjecting certain employees’ documents to one level of scrutiny and others to a different level of scrutiny, there are strong employee discrimination protections within the I-9 law,” Eaton said. “If the document you’re given gives you a good faith reason to believe it’s authentic then you have complied with the law, even if it turns out it wasn’t authentic.”

While immigration raids, even under the current administration, aren’t especially common, employers still have to remember that they can be subject to I-9 audits, warns a human resources expert, so employment records need to be carefully checked — and retained.

Five years ago, Con Pane Rustic Breads and Cafe, a popular longtime San Diego business, was forced to close following a federal immigration audit that the then-owner said at the time uncovered a number of employees to be unauthorized workers. The Cohn Restaurant Group later took over the business and reopened the bakery.

“You need to have a policy of preparing your workplace for immigration enforcement and what to look for,” said Emily Dickens, chief of staff for the trade group SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management). “We’ve encouraged people to be proactive, don’t just accept things at face value. There are too many opportunities for your business to be in jeopardy for not being compliant when you’re beginning to hire people.

“You cannot put this at risk, no matter the size of your organization.”

They keep finding new ways to try to part you from your money.

Phishing — where thieves pose as trusted entities or send legitimate looking emails or messages to trick you into giving them access to your accounts — is a widespread method. And it is constantly evolving.

“We’ve seen phishing go through the roof,” said Eva Velasquez, the CEO of the Identity Theft Resource Center, a San Diego-based national nonprofit.

But knowledge is power. So here are three emerging phishing threats to look out for, according to internet safety experts. All three threats target key parts of people’s digital lives: email attachments that lead to fake login pages, multi-factor authentication trickery and deceptive calendar invites.

Spending a few minutes reading these pointers could help you avoid getting your ID or money stolen and save you countless hours of dealing with the fallout.

HTML attachments that open fake login pages

Imagine a busy professional who is in email action mode. In the past 30 minutes on a Saturday morning, he has filled out emailed liability waivers for his seven children’s summer camps, filed an expense report for work, answered a secure portal message from the veterinarian about his sick puppy’s prescription, skimmed 182 email subject lines and paid five bills from his email inbox, including a car insurance premium and his beloved cheese-of-the-month club.

Amid this flurry of inbound emails, ads, invoices and secure messages, he is working on autopilot: opening messages, skimming, clicking and signing in.

What a perfect opportunity.

Scammers are taking advantage of user distraction — and their trust — by sending emails with HTM or HTML attachments. When clicked, those open a browser file that looks like secure, familiar login page. These pages might look like secure invoice viewers, file-sharing services like DocuSign or Dropbox, or sign-in pages to platforms including Microsoft 365.

“Once the user enters their credentials, they are sent surreptitiously to the attacker’s server,” said Vlad Cristescu, the head of cybersecurity with ZeroBounce, a Florida company that helps businesses lower their rate of bounced marketing emails.

Why this method is especially insidious: “There isn’t a clickable link in the email, so standard email security filters (which scan for malicious URLs or attachments like PDFs and ZIPs) may not catch it,” Cristescu added.

To prevent this, he added, companies should “restrict HTML attachments unless essential, and users should treat unfamiliar HTML files the same way they’d treat a suspicious link — don’t open it unless you’re absolutely sure of the sender.”

If you do receive incoming communication with an HTML link or attachment, don’t engage, said Velasquez, with the ITRC.

“Don’t click on links, people. That’s the big, overarching message,” she said. Instead, go to the source: call the phone number on the back of your credit card, visit the bank in person.

Multifactor authentication tricks

If you are one of the many people who uses multifactor authentication, take note.

Multifactor authentication is still very helpful and should be used.

But Cristescu flagged one way that scammers are taking this tool — which is designed to make people’s online accounts more secure — and using it to slither in.

As a refresher, multifactor authentication is an added layer of protection that prevents data thieves from logging into your accounts if they have your username and password. It helps ensure that you’re the one who typed in your password when you log in, and not some scammer in the Philippines or Poughkeepsie.

To use multifactor authentication, you typically download an app, such as Google Authenticator or Microsoft Authenticator. You register your sensitive online accounts, such as Facebook, bank or email, with that app. Then, every time you log into a registered website, the authenticator app generates a new, random code that you enter after your password as a second layer of verification.

With the rise of this protection, a new threat has emerged: Scammers who have your username and password can send log-in requests to your authenticator app. Next, the scammer can pose as an IT expert from your workplace and ask you to approve the log-in request.

If you fall for it, then boom — the scammer is in.

This technique “exploits a user’s frustration and trust in IT. If you’re receiving multiple (authenticator) prompts you didn’t initiate, that’s not a glitch – it’s an attack,” Cristescu said. He recommends pausing, never approving these unexpected requests and flagging the interaction with IT.

Velasquez added that if you get an authenticator notification and you didn’t just log in yourself, “That is a huge red flag. Stop and address it. Don’t ignore it.”

Anytime you interact with IT, be sure you’re the one initiating that contact, she added. If someone from IT calls or emails you, disconnect and reach back out using a trusted method, such as the same phone number you always dial.

Fake calendar invites

A third technique data thieves are using is calendar invites.

“I just get really very angry about this one,” Velasquez said. “It is super hard to detect.”

Here’s what to look out for. If you use an online calendar like Google calendar or the native iPhone calendar app, you might receive an invitation to an event you didn’t see coming. Sometimes these meetings are legitimate. Sometimes, they are not.

Scammers “are now sending meeting requests with malicious links embedded in the invite or ‘join’ button. These invitations sync directly into calendars and often go unquestioned,” according to ZeroBounce.

Scammers use calendar invites because they have “built-in credibility – they’re not usually scrutinized like emails,” Cristescu said. Look for meeting requests from unknown senders and vague event names like “Sync” or “Project Review,” he added.

In some jobs or roles, meetings routinely get added to calendars by other people — clients, prospects, coworkers, bosses, peers.

“I have gotten these repeatedly,” said Velasquez, with the ITRC. “Depending on your lifestyle and your job and how you work, these are going to be particularly challenging. They are real calendar invites. The problem is they have malicious software embedded in them — so when you click on portions of them, ‘Click to join,’ it’s like opening an attachment (or) clicking on a suspicious link. It’s the same principle.”

Cristescu, with ZeroBounce, shared this tip: “Treat those just like a phishing email. Disable auto-accept where possible and review every invite manually before clicking anything.”

Never stop questioning what lands in your inbox or calendar, Cristescu added. “Always verify the sender’s email address, ensure that any link you click matches the legitimate domain, and look out for subtle red flags like spelling errors or unusual formatting.”

A big picture pointer

“All three of these (scams) are so common that it has probably happened to every single person reading the article — at least one of them. That’s how ubiquitous these are,” Velasquez said.

She shared this broader thought: It’s less important to know how to respond to each scenario and more important to pause, be skeptical, double check.

It’s important to be ever more skeptical, because AI makes it easier and easier for thieves to create convincing ruses, Cristescu and Velasquez both said.

AI “really helps with making these phishing offers look and sound so much more legitimate,” Velasquez said. “And with the amount of data that is out there from public sources and from data breaches, it’s very easy to see what relationships people have.” Where you bank, where you do business — that is all fodder for someone to create a copycat page designed to trick you into logging in.

Adopt an “investigator mindset,” Velasquez said. Use this helpful reminder: the acronym STAR, which stands for Stop. Think. Ask questions or ask for help. Reassess.

The ITRC nonprofit can answer questions, for free, through phone and live chat. Toll-free phone: 888-400-5530. Live chat staffed by people, not bots:  https://www.idtheftcenter.org/victim-help-center/

If you are done working on your 2024 taxes, congratulations.

If you have not, the last-minute tax filing tips below, from one San Diego finance professional and the Internal Revenue Service, could make the coming days a little bit less of a drag.

Insights from a finance pro

Levi Anderson, a financial planning manager with the San Diego office EP Wealth Advisors, a fee-only, fiduciary firm, shared some insights and reminders for anyone still working on their taxes, whether alone or with a tax professional.

1. If you’re filing an extension, you still have to pay your tax balance by Tuesday’s tax deadline, Anderson said. “If you are filing an extension, be aware that taxes are due on the original tax deadline although you are filing an extension,” he said. “Although the penalty for ‘Failure-to-Pay’ is less than the ‘Failure-to-File’ penalty, the penalty and interest can add up if you wait until later to pay your taxes you owe.”
2. It’s not too late to contribute to your 2024 retirement accounts — even though we are four months into 2025. Those contributions could reduce your taxable income. “Making a last-minute contribution to these accounts still can count for the 2024 tax year until April 15th. Just be sure you note it as a 2024 contribution when you make it,” Anderson said.

IRS resources for last-minute filers

For last-minute filers looking for free filing resources, qualified taxpayers can still use IRS Direct File and IRS Free File. “Additionally, anyone can use IRS Free File to submit an extension of time to file regardless of their income,” the agency says on its website. Link: irs.gov/filing/file-an-extension-through-irs-free-file

The IRS has a searchable FAQ page with links to almost 60 questions and answers, including “Should I file an amended return?” and “How do I correct an excess salary deferral to my 401(k)?” and a series of questions about payments and distributions dubbed “Is it taxable?” Link: irs.gov/help/ita

The IRS’s last-minute tips page also has information for people who are eligible for automatic extensions and who have trouble paying their tax bills. Link: irs.gov/newsroom/last-minute-filing-tips-resources-available-to-help-taxpayers-who-still-need-to-file

Avoiding errors

The IRS also shared pointers to minimize the chance that your return will have an error.

1. Triple check that your filing status, names, Social Security numbers and birthdates are correct. Same goes for bank account and routing numbers, for a refund via direct deposit.
2. Answer the digital asset question on Form 1040 and several other forms: “At any time during the tax year, did you: (a) receive (as a reward, award or payment for property or services); or (b) sell, exchange, or otherwise dispose of a digital asset (or a financial interest in a digital asset)?” Examples of digital assets include convertible virtual currencies and cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Income from these assets is taxable.
3. The agency also recommends using electronic filing over paper filing, as a tool to boost accuracy. “Electronic filing decreases mathematical errors … and prompts taxpayers for missing information. Opting for electronic filing and selecting direct deposit is the fastest and safest way to receive a refund,” the agency says.

Planning ahead

Anderson, the San Diego finance professional, said now is a great time to start getting in shape for next year’s filing season.

“While reviewing your tax return, ask your preparer if they would recommend you consider doing something different in order to be in a better tax position next year,” he said. “While you may not be able to have a lengthy strategy session on the spot, your tax situation will be fresh in your preparer’s mind, and they may have very helpful pointers for you to consider between now and the end of the year.”

Don’t just put your tax return in a drawer, Anderson added. “The biggest issue we see is that people don’t think about taxes until this time next year. Most of the tax-savvy moves need to be done by Dec. 31.”

Take thieves, frauds and scammers. As long as there are dollars in someone’s bank account, there are other people devising ways to siphon those dollars and claim them as their own.

The Internal Revenue Service is on to them. In its list of “dirty dozen” tax scams for 2025, the agency tells taxpayers how to protect themselves from fraud. It also warns people about ways some taxpayers try to trick the IRS.

The agency started publishing the dirty dozen list in 2002 to inform and protect taxpaying workers.

Here are several schemes and scams to watch out for this year, as well as mistakes and tricks to steer clear of as a taxpayer.

Fake charities. A seeming do-gooder asks for donations to help victims of a natural disaster. You’d gladly open your pocketbook. But how do you know it’s legitimate?

“Taxpayers who give money or goods to a charity might be able to claim a deduction on their federal tax return if they itemize deductions, but charitable donations only count if they go to a qualified tax-exempt organization recognized by the IRS,” the IRS writes.

One way to check is with the IRS’s tax-exempt organization search tool: irs.gov/charities-non-profits/search-for-tax-exempt-organizations

Also, no charity will ask for your Social Security Number.

Social media influencers. If you spend any time on Instagram or TikTok during tax season, you might be following — or be shown — reels from people who are excited to share little-known secret ways to bulk up tax refunds. To an untrained ear, they might sound great. Claim this, deduct that. Congratulations, now you’re a millionaire!

In reality, these people are peddling bad advice. And if you follow it, then you — not the social media charlatan — are on the hook.

“Social media platforms routinely circulate inaccurate or misleading tax information, including on TikTok where people share wildly inaccurate tax advice. Some involve urging people to misuse common tax documents like Form W-2,” the agency writes.

Here’s one sleazy move that has been promoted online:

“This scheme, circulating on social media, encourages people to use tax software to manually fill out Form W-2, Wage and Tax Statement, and include false income information. In this W-2 scheme, scam artists suggest people make up large income and withholding figures, as well as the employer it’s coming from. Scam artists then instruct people to file the bogus tax return electronically in hopes of getting a substantial refund – sometimes as much as five figures – due to the large amount of withholding,” the agency writes.

Email phishing and smishing. These are classics.

The gist: If you get an out of the blue email or a text message about taxes, delete it.

“Never click on any unsolicited communication claiming to be from the IRS as it may surreptitiously load malware. This may also be a way for malicious hackers to load ransomware that keeps the legitimate user from accessing their system and files,” the agency writes. These messages can also “lure unsuspecting victims into providing valuable personal and financial information that can lead to identity theft.”

Thieves send messages that try to create a sense of urgency and sound official. Phrases like “Your account has now been put on hold” or “Unusual Activity Report” with bogus links are all red flags.

“The promise of unexpected tax refunds is another potential tactic used by scam artists,” the agency adds.

Sketchy credits. Back in 2020 and 2021, during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, the IRS had specialized sick and family leave credits for certain self-employed workers. Those are no longer available, so don’t claim them for this year’s taxes. The form in question is 7202.

A related error is about a so-called Self-Employment Tax Credit — which, the IRS says, does not exist.

“There is inaccurate information being circulated that suggests many people qualify for the tax credit and payments of up to $32,000 when they actually do not,” the agency writes. This mistake may be inspired by the Credits for Sick Leave and Family Leave, mentioned above, even though not many people had even qualified for those. “The IRS is closely reviewing claims coming in under this provision, so taxpayers filing claims do so at their own risk.”

Another error is the Fuel Tax Credit. It has a narrow target: off-highway businesses and farms. But a new trend is leading people to wrongly claim this credit.

“Unscrupulous tax return preparers and promoters, including people on social media, continue enticing taxpayers into inflating their refunds by erroneously claiming the credit,” the agency says.

Fake employees. How to get in trouble with the IRS: invent a fake nanny or butler. Then, file a Schedule H (Form 1040), Household Employment Taxes, so you can claim a refund on sick and family medical leave wages you never paid. Then get caught by the IRS.

“People who try this scam face a wide range of penalties, including a frivolous return penalty of $5,000. They also run the risk of criminal prosecution for filing a false tax return,” the agency says.

Courtesy announcement: Improper household employment taxes are on the IRS’s radar.

Fake clients. This one targets tax professionals.

“Cybercriminals impersonate new, potential clients to trick tax professionals and other businesses into responding to their emails,” the agency writes. “Once the tax pro responds, the scammer sends a malicious attachment or URL that can compromise the preparer’s computer systems and allow the attacker to access sensitive client information.”

These attacks can steal client data and the business owner’s identity. Next, the thief can file fraudulent returns using stolen information, the agency said.

For the complete list of 12 scams to look out for in the 2025 tax season, and a baker’s dozen item, head over to the IRS website. ]]> 11191591 2025-03-06T15:15:51+00:00 2025-03-06T15:19:00+00:00 https://www.baltimoresun.com/2025/03/05/making-a-classic-new-again-how-this-san-diego-publisher-refreshed-jane-austen-for-her-250th-birthday/ Wed, 05 Mar 2025 19:42:51 +0000 https://www.baltimoresun.com/?p=11189486&preview=true&preview_id=11189486 SAN DIEGO — Here’s a hot take. Publishing beautiful books has never mattered more than now. Gorgeous covers, gilded edges, swirly endpapers and sharp illustrations have long been ways to give the words inside importance, draw readers to new stories, make old stories fresh, create an immersive experience and in some cases show status.

But now, in the age of the digital and audio texts, designing a book that feels and looks fetching is also about offering readers a form self-expression, sensory pleasure and an escape from screens: the warmth of leather, the smoothness of paper, and the exhibition, for better or worse, of the reader’s tastes. Because unlike an e-book, which fits discreetly inside a screen, a paper book sits on a shelf or cafe table and announces this reader is into murder. Or robot romances. Or Jane Austen.

A San Diego publisher is on the cutting edge of crafting lovely looking paper books that make statements as literary and aesthetic objects. Canterbury Classics, in Mira Mesa, publishes out of copyright works including “Frankenstein,” “The Great Gatsby” and “Pride and Prejudice.” Its leatherbound series looks like something out of Mr. Darcy’s library. Another series has covers heat stamped with clouds of words and quotes. Another series has brightly embroidered covers with threads actually woven into the paper.

“Beautiful, tactile, unexpected,” is how Peter Norton, the publisher of Canterbury Classics, described these books.

Almost 20 years after Amazon launched the Kindle, Norton said there is demand for paper books, in part because people want a refuge from digital experiences. “Tactile is the best way to unplug,” he said.

“I think books, physical books, are doing fantastic,” he said. “They’ve been doing well over the past several years. The sky was falling up until about 2013 with e-books getting more market share. But I think the iPad came out and you could no longer unplug on a Kindle or a Nook, because now you were getting your texts and all that stuff on that. So I think since then, physical books have come back in a big way, or taken back some of that market share.”

In 2012, 591 million print books were sold in the U.S. That number has been mostly rising, reaching a high of 837.66 million in 2021 and falling to 767.36 in 2023, the last year reported, according to data from Statista.

Justine Epstein, the owner of Verbatim Books in North Park, said trends at her store show that people are craving beautiful books.

“(There is) a resurgence of people appreciating the aesthetics of the book, in response to — a lot of our lives are just online. I don’t know exactly what it is, but it does seem like there’s certain people who are looking to remember why we appreciated books in the first place. … They can be so, so beautiful just in themselves, little objects d’art.”

Canterbury Classics has a knack for choosing classic titles by Poe, Homer and the Brothers Grimm that readers want, she said.

“They’re popular titles, and then the way that they look is just so beautiful. I think that they fit in well with the whole decor that we have in the store,” she said.

Epstein said people buy these books for a few reasons. Some are gifts. Some readers are drawn to the striking covers and spines and buy them if they were already curious about that author.

“I think people are also looking to upgrade their collection, having nicer editions of the things they’re going to be rereading,” she added.

Getting noticed

Last year, Costco announced it is cutting back on physical book sales.

Norton pointed to the bright side: “From my perspective, the fact that they still have 101 locations that are carrying it year-round is a good thing. I think books are an important part — they add a lot to every retailer. Target sells a lot of books. Walmart sells a lot of books. And they do it because it adds something to the consumer’s experience,” he said.

Others are more optimistic about print books. Barnes & Noble announced this month it will open a record 60 new stores across the U.S. this year, including in California.

Still, Costco’s pullback points to what Norton said is the tough part about publishing paper books: real estate. It’s not just about how many Costco warehouses sell books, but how they’re displayed in any store. Spine or cover out? Under a big promo sign by the front window or behind a turnstile of alphabet placemats at the back of the store?

“Everybody’s trying to get space at retail in an environment that is competitive. It’s the same thing that everybody used to say about Amazon: discoverability.”

How can a book publisher make its books easy to discover?

“I do think getting the cover right and being on trend with the covers — you only have like three seconds to catch somebody’s attention who’s walking by. Also, having books in all channels and having access to create formats in that work in multiple channels helps with discoverability, exponentially,” he said. In other words, making books that fit with discount retailers, online retailers, big box stores like Amazon and indie bookstores.

Sandra Dijkstra, the owner of a Del Mar, California, based literary agency, and Amy Tan’s longtime agent, said a book’s title and cover are essential.

“From the get-go, I have always fought for jacket art and titles which are magnets, each element therein vital to its appeal to potential book buyers,” she wrote in an email. “From Joy Luck Club on, this was my mantra: Each word in a title has to count, to make an impact, as do the colors and design of the book jacket itself, whether it be physical or online.”

She added one caveat. “Physical and virtual books too have always been designed to appeal, the sad thing being one never knows until it’s too late, if one got it wrong!”

Austen hits a milestone

Jane Austen, whose novels combine biting wit and melting romance, is one of Canterbury Classic’s most sought after authors.

“We do sell Jane Austin extraordinarily well,” Norton said.

On one hand, no surprise, because, have you read her stuff? On the other, this is interesting, because public domain texts including “Pride and Prejudice” are free online. They’re also available for a few dollars plus shipping, from secondhand merchants. Yet these new releases of old hits sell very well. Since 2010 Canterbury Classics has sold around 850,000 copies of Jane Austen’s books and more than 10 million copies of the Canterbury Leather and Word Cloud Classics editions.

“Which overindexes, considering she’s only got six novels. So she’s a big plus for us. We’re behind her in a big way,” Norton said. Its “Pride and Prejudice” edition with quotes and words stamped on its magenta cover has sold “well over 100,000 copies.”

For context, if a new book sells 5,000 to 10,000 copies, it’s considered a commercial success by most publishers, Norton said.

With Jane Austen’s 250th birthday this year, the publisher has planned a few special events to help these novels sell even better.

One is a 12-month reading challenge. March invites people to buy its Word Cloud Classics boxed set, which has quotes — “My feelings will not be repressed” and others — stamped on the book covers. April nods to independent bookstores: “The 12th Annual Independent Bookstore Day is celebrated April 26th, so why not show some love to a local retailer and add to your Regency Romance collection at the same time?” the publisher asks. November is about Austen, the person. “Since National Author’s Day is November 1st, let’s take a dive into a biography about Jane, or even her own letters.”

In September, the company is releasing a redesigned boxed set of her novels, with a suggested price of $90. The six spines line up to form a pattern that runs across them, and on the other three sides of each book, the edges of the pages are color printed to connect and create a different, larger image. The publisher will also promote her titles at its booth at the American Library Association conference this summer. And they’re using the standard book marketing channels: connecting with online influencers, investing in enhanced product pages on Amazon. (Author readings stopped being an option in 1817, when Austen died, at 41.)

Norton expects these efforts to translate into a significant bump in sales.

“We think we’ll sell 50% more Jane Austen titles than we have in prior years,” he said.

Innovating with classics

Reading challenges and conference booths are marketing. Long before that, how does a publisher create successful new hits out of texts that are centuries old? (Or at least 70, given U.S. copyright law.) And how does Canterbury Classics spot the next trend, whether it is quotes on the cover or embroidery?

“I think there’s several things,” Norton said. One is looking at data on what is selling, from BookScan and Circana, two book market intelligence companies. “You could read the tea leaves from that. And maybe because of my background in Barnes & Noble and seeing sales every day, you could immediately spot trendlines, whether it’s micro or macro, and using my career experience.”

Norton, an English major, came to publishing through bookstores. Before becoming the publisher and a vice president at Printer’s Row Publishing Group, of which Canterbury Classics is an imprint, he was a book buyer for Barnes & Noble and led the book chain’s proprietary publishing.

“Understanding what happens at retail is very valuable,” he said.

He also keeps an eye on the world around him and taps his “very creative team” to do the same; 11 people work on the editorial side, and others work in production, sales and marketing. “We go to a lot of different retailers, we pick up things that catch our eye and we think look really cool, in the book space or not in the book space,” he said. “And then we bring it back and we say, Well, what can we do with this?”

One example is the delicately embroidered covers, which came out in 2024. Norton was seeing embroidery and crocheting everywhere. Then he saw an embroidered greeting card and thought, “If they could do this on a card, we could do this on a book. So it’s looking not just in the book space, but looking at all of the adjacencies and getting ideas that way.” He was aware of embroidery and crochet circles, which can be like book clubs — wine, friends, conversation — but with needles and hooks.

“Books weren’t necessarily being targeted for that audience, but that audience was already there,” he said.

Norton is also the publisher of two other imprints of Printer’s Row Publishing Group: Thunder Bay Press, which makes adult activity books — word search, coloring books, crochet and embroidery kits. The other is Portable Press, which publishes trivia and joke books. The imprints sometimes spill into one another: one sells embroidery kits, another sells embroidered covers. Both tap into the trend of embroidery that has taken Etsy by storm. All three try to create things that shoppers want, before they know they want it.

Overall, he said, new ideas come through “creative osmosis, where there’s so much out there, and if you’re letting yourself take it in, but also buying things just to say OK, and then thinking about it and sharing it with the team.”

They’re also always looking out for new titles that will enter the public domain. This year and next, that includes works by Hemingway, Faulkner and Woolf.

At Canterbury Classics, which releases between five and 10 new titles a year, both in print and for e-readers, it takes about 18 months to develop a book. So Norton and his team will have to wait until late 2026 to find out if today’s ideas and author picks will resonate with readers.