The case has been made here repeatedly over years that the business and operating model of book publishing as it has been throughout my 50+-year career is irretrievably broken. And it is increasingly obvious that this is the case across all “content” businesses — newspapers, magazines, movies, TV, and radio — and for very much […]
The problem with bookstores is the problem for bookstores
Three decades ago, if you wanted a trade book, you went to a bookstore or a bigger merchant like Wal-mart or a department store with a book “section”. It was actually hard to get a book any other way. That really changed starting with Amazon in 1995 and has continued to splinter since with a […]
When a publisher might not do as good a job as a self-publishing author
We’ve previously explored what I called “the end of the trade publishing concept”, which stems from the now wide-open opportunity to publish available to anybody with a computer and something to deliver as a book. It feels like we may have reached a new benchmark: admittedly a very fuzzy one. But it looks like it […]
What the ruling against the PRH-S&S merger means for the publishing business
Judge Florence Y. Pan ruled today that the acquisition of Simon & Schuster by Penguin Random House could not go forward. The ruling was explicitly to protect the “competition” for the “anticipated top-selling books”. In other words, the big books by big authors for which only the Big Five can compete regularly (with occasional bids […]
Doubts about the Department of Justice’s objection to the PRH acquisition of S&S
There are, at this moment, still five US commercial book publishers of mega-size. Penguin Random House is the biggest; HarperCollins is 2nd; and Hachette, Macmillan, and Simon & Schuster round out the Big Five. PRH is, approximately, as big as the other four combined (about $4 billion in sales) and HarperCollins is, approximately, as big […]
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