{"id":457,"date":"2008-01-07T05:00:56","date_gmt":"2008-01-07T13:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightreading.com\/blog\/2008\/01\/07\/the-plight-of-independent-book-publishing-part-2\/"},"modified":"2008-01-19T11:53:36","modified_gmt":"2008-01-19T19:53:36","slug":"the-plight-of-independent-book-publishing-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightreading.com\/blog\/publishing\/the-plight-of-independent-book-publishing-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Independent book publishing, part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"rupertIt\u2019s time to get back to the discussion of the dilemma of independent book publishing, following holidays that were more disruptive than I anticipated.<\/p>\n

This project began when I discovered that the large changes in the publishing industry over recent decades were not necessarily known even by some who were generally knowledgeable about books.<\/p>\n

A caveat before we go on: I\u2019m a guy who likes to make and sell books and knows how to do the various aspects of this. But I\u2019m neither a historian of publishing nor an industry journalist, exactly \u2013 I don\u2019t even subscribe to Publishers Weekly<\/em> anymore. So I can make mistakes. What I would like to establish, however, are the large trends. If I get some particulars wrong, well, as the Chinese literati<\/a> used to write on their paintings, \u201cPlease correct me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last time we saw the storied presses with the country\u2019s longest and most distinguished publishing traditions gobbled up by a handful of giant international corporations<\/a>. (Thanks to several people who added helpful comments qualifying and fleshing out my account.) Now we have reached the point where a few corporations control most of the country\u2019s book publishing.<\/p>\n

In 2003 Publishers Weekly<\/em> wrote that the five large New York publishers (Random House, Penguin, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, and Time-Warner) accounted for 45% of the market\u2019s sales. But these publishers are only parts of the larger entities, which often own many publishing companies. In 1999 Andre Schiffrin wrote that the top 20 publishers accounted for 93% of all sales, and in 2000 he said that 80 percent of book sales are controlled by five corporations: Bertlesman, News Corp, Time-Warner, Disney, and Viacom\/CBS.<\/p>\n

Today we\u2019ll take a look at these corporations and quickly survey what other sorts of things they own in addition to book publishing companies. In what follows, I use the word \u201cown\u201d for convenience; often control is shared in complicated ways, and \u201chas a major stake in\u201d would be more correct.<\/p>\n