Jim Milliot & Judith Rosen of Publishers Weekly report that Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s trade book division – the one that stopped acquiring last fall – is being auctioned off as we speak by its debt-plagued parent company. Their sources say there are four “serious” bidders and the action is at $200 million so far. Given the 7 billion debt load that Education Media & Publishing Group groaning under – costing them $500 million annually in debt service alone – bidders will have to get thirty or forty times more serious if the winning bid is to make EMPG even remotely whole.

Leading the pack of snapping bargain hunters, as we predicted here, is Hachette, but there is also apparently a dark horse in the person of “former HM executive Wendy Strothman who has the backing of private equity firm.”

Vultures are standing by.

RC