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ebookporn · 2 years

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Everything You Need to Know About the Penguin Random House Trial

One mega-publisher is fighting to purchase another—but what does that mean for the people who make and read books? Publishing insiders tell Esquire how this merger could change the business forever, and not for the better.

by Sophie Vershbow

Last week, the publishing trial of the century kicked off in Washington, DC to determine whether Penguin Random House (PRH) will be allowed to purchase Simon & Schuster (S&S) from Paramount Global for $2.2 billion dollars. President Biden’s Department of Justice filed suit to block the deal in November 2021 as part of a broader effort to enhance antitrust enforcement. The DOJ is arguing that the merger “will cede nearly 50% of the market for anticipated top-selling books to the combined firm, which will harm competition by lowering author advances and diminishing output, creativity, and diversity.” In a nutshell: PRHSS (name pending) would be bad for competition, and thereby detrimental to both authors and customers.

PRH and S&S argue that combining their resources would not hurt competition and would in fact allow PRH to make higher offers overall, thus encouraging competitive advances from other members of the Big Five (well, four), as well as independent publishers like Scholastic and Workman.

During the first week of the trial (which is still ongoing), we heard testimony from witnesses on both sides, including S&S CEO Jonathan Karp, PRH CEO Markus Dohle, and bestselling S&S author Stephen King (for whom I once bought a sandwich as a publicity assistant). There were several gasp-worthy moments from these publishing power players who spilled more industry tea than at the National Book Awards afterparty. If you want to get a more granular picture of what’s going on in the trial, I recommend reading Publishers Weekly News Editor John Maher’s epic Twitter thread, which recounts a play-by-play from inside the courthouse.

Top 5 Reasons to Read

It's Deb Caletti. Isn't that enough?! I read and reviewed A Heart in a Body in the World when it released, and I *still* think about it to this day. She writes YA contemporary like no other.

I don't think there is any topic more relevant and urgent to the lives of young women than abortion -- the right to healthcare, the right to make one's own choices, the right to control one's own body.

The mother in this book is strong and amazing and supportive, and it was wonderful to read such a present and powerful parental character in YA.

The trip across country that Ivy and Lorenzo make is whimsical and fun while also leading to Ivy figuring out more who she is and what she wants. It may seem weird to have the trip to get an abortion be like this, but when reading you realize it makes perfect sense.

Perhaps my most favorite aspect of the book, and my top reason to read it, is the character of Lorenzo. Ivy's boyfriend not only supports whatever choice she wants to make, he calculates the travel route that takes them through all the "world cities" between Paris, Texas and Manhattan Beach, Oregon -- from Lima, Oklahoma to Naples, Utah to Rome, Oregon. He knows how desperately Ivy wishes to see the world, and he wants to give it to her, making my heart completely full.

While this isn't a traditional review, I do have to say this is a 5-star book for me for sure. I want to put it in the hands of every teen reader I come across -- and parents, too! It's beautifully written and empowering, and I can't recommend it highly enough.

Thank you so much to the publisher, author, and TBR and Beyond for the early copy of the book and for having me on tour!

#plan a #deb caletti #yalit #ya lit #ya literature #ya books #young adult #new release #newrelease #blog tour #new releases #labyrinth road #penguin random house #prh #abortion #abortionbooks #top 5 reasons to read #tbrbeyondtours #tbr and beyond tours

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eastsidemags · 2 years

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Crashing - A Signing Experience

Matt Klein is a busy guy and has been in the comics industry a LOOOOOOONG time.

He’s worked for Valiant Comics as a sales guy and took over the position with vigor and enthusiasm, traveling from comic convention to comic convention peddling Valiant Comics and promises of supporting the industry. Which he totally did.

He’s currently working with Penguin Random House. He took this role with the same vigor and enthusiasm he had with Valiant - proving THAT’S the kind of guy he is. He loves comics. He loves shops. He loves working with folks who love comics. Talking about comics. Selling comics. Buying comics. Reading comics. But I guess that wasn’t enough…

East Side Mags is PROUD to bring you Matt Klein’s Crashing #1 from IDW. Because apparently Matt also loves to WRITE COMICS! And we’ve read the advance copy. You are going to LOVE IT also!

About Crashing #1: Rose Osler is a specialist. Her focus? Patients with Powers... at a hospital with a No Powered Patients policy. When a battle between Boston's protectors and destroyers erupts, Rose is trapped between saving the city's beloved hero by day and greatest villain at night. Except Rose could become a casualty when she's forced to risk her recovery. As Rose pushes past her limits to save everyone else, will she be able to save herself?

So come by on Sunday, October 9th from 1pm-5pm to meet Matt, ask him 1000 questions about the industry and let him deface your copy so you can take it home and put it in a plastic thing-y and love it like he loves it - forever. :)

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spaceshipkat · 2 years

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When the proposed merger between PRH and S&S was first announced in 2020, the prevailing narrative was that a combined PRHS&S would give helpless publishers the leverage they needed to push back against the almighty force of Amazon.

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One of the ironies of this trial, industry magazine Publishers Weekly noted early on, was that “the government’s case relies in part on making publishers look extraordinarily savvy about the market in which they operate, in addition to benefiting from their sheer size.” For publishers to rebut that case, they in turn had to present themselves as essentially incompetent gamblers, risking the company’s money in an industry no one could predict, all for the sheer love of literature.

“Everything is random in publishing,” Penguin Random House CEO Markus Dohle told the court during his testimony. “Success is random. Bestsellers are random. That is why we are the Random House!” He went on to describe the editors and publishers of PRH as “angel investors in our authors and their dreams, their stories.”

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Both depictions of publishing on display at this trial, as Publishers Weekly acknowledged, have an element of truth. The book market really is notoriously unpredictable, and book publishers really are fairly savvy about manipulating that market in order to insure their own profits. That’s how publishing CEOs traditionally justify their enormous salaries: They are supposed to be the people who understand how to make money out of an irrational business.

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It suits publishers to describe their industry as illogical, quirky, or romantic. Such a depiction of publishing gives cover to the status quo, in which the industry is 76 percent white and 95 percent of books published between 1950 and 2018 were written by white people. If publishing isn’t really a business, but an investment in people’s dreams, then there are no structural inequalities that publishers have to worry about that might have led to this state of affairs. And since those structural inequalities don’t exist, they can’t possibly be exacerbated by further industry consolidation.

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The story of American publishing over the past 100 years is the story of an industry consolidating itself, and of that consolidation encouraging homogeneity, blandness, and the safest possible publishing decisions. It remains to be seen whether that consolidation will continue as this trial ends — or whether this case will provide the precedent to slow consolidation in more industries than this one.

#publishing #publishing industry #simon and schuster #penguin random house #prh vs doj #booklr #bookblr #writeblr #books

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rose--hathaways · 1 year

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this is your quarterly reminder that if you don’t bully your friends into buying the vampire academy books (and if i can’t bully enough customers into buying them) they make me rip the covers off of the excess stock to send back to the publisher 💔

#and they make us put the guts in the bin 💔#today was a really tough day #THIS IS THE CASE FOR ALL PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE BOOKS BY THE WAY #LIKE @ PRH THAT IS SO WASTEFUL #LET US SEND THEM BACK WHOLE OR MAYBE DONATE THEM?????#ugh i hate the australian book industry 😤#idk if it works like this overseas too?? lemme know if anyone knows

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kuwtsussexes · 1 year

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The World Central Kitchen Cookbook includes a Lemon Olive Oil Cake recipe from Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex.

#meghan markle #duchess of sussex #world central kitchen #I want Meghan to have her cookbook #isn’t their book deal with PRH a 4 book deal anyways?#archewell

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pianostrings · 1 year

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Social commentary on Roald Dahl controversy aside, people buying into the cultural outrage by running out to buy the ‘current’ books thinking millions of editions will disappear overnight.

Meanwhile, Penguin Random House execs:

#this is a commercial decision by a commercial company to market their books to every single future generation #Netflix acquiring Roald Dahl works to create a marvel style multiverse #every decade every book altered to fit the current landscape #PRH are winning off your cultural outrage #something something capitalism #Roald Dahl #books #publishing

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booksteacupandreviews · 1 year

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Pet That Cat!: A Handbook for Making Feline Friends by Nigel Kidd - children's non-fiction about cats

#PetThatCat! is fun and informative #childrensnonfiction about cats with adorable illustrations. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Many thanks @PRHGlobal for free review copy. @quirkbooks #BookTwitter #booksteacupandreviews #Bookreviewer Full #Bookreview ⬇️

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wanlittlehusk · 2 years

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lol are we really canceling people for being penguin random house authors now

#like i promise you authors going with the publishing house that has the resources to support them is not the problem here #all your faves are at prh and almost all of them have been incredibly vocal against both the merger and the lawsuit #like it’s a shitty looking tarot deck. but penguin authors are not the ones in charge #go get mad at sonny mehta with me. it’s soothing

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vermofftiss · 2 years

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These books don't say what volume or issue number I'm on and it's making me want to EAT THEM

#prh like here! have the sandman comics in the most convenient form! not gonna tell you where you are though <3 #the sandman #i should get some like. fancy stickies to number everything for myself

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girlwithnoface · 29 days

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doing interviews for the one job you really didnt want oh what if i died

#prh please contact me back i dont want THIS to be the one omfg

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mutsukiss · 5 months

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I'm so fucking bored I miss dog sim games sm but literally none of them are good ahhghhhgghgh

#i miss PRH i miss BIS #I MISS PRH

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lilibetbombshell · 6 months

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maggotwithanf · 8 months

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IDW shitcanning everyone's book

#i'm on one book that survived the Oni-pocalypse Round 2 #and like 2 months ago they shitcanned the smithsonian line and left a bunch of my friends gigless >:(#mad cave has a new EiC that's supposedly the reason why everything's all futzy there now #the S&S shit #i adore [redacted] at abrams theyre my fuckin bestie but ABRAMS PLEASE;;;#the only tradpub place that isn't NERO STYLE FALLING OF ROME right now is like. er. idk?? chronicle??? the P side of PRH?!?#harper had all those “voluntary layoffs”#the nib is dead #i mean holy shit comics is dire rn

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spaceshipkat · 1 year

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“The government has presented a compelling case that predicts substantial harm to competition as a result of the proposed merger of PRH and S&S,” Pan concluded. DoJ attorneys properly defined a relevant market—“anticipated top selling books” with advances over $250,000—which, she noted, accounts for 70% of the advance monies paid to authors. The post-merger entity would have had a “concerningly high” 49% market share, more than twice that of its closest competitor in an already concentrated market in which “the two top competitors would hold 74% of the market and the top four market participants would control 91%.” And, citing the publishers’ previous actions a decade ago in the Apple price-fixing case, Pan found “strong evidence” of “likely unilateral and coordinated” effects that would further harm competition. At the same time, Pan shredded each of PRH/S&S’s defenses. In a key blow, she swiftly dispatched with the defense’s central argument that the government’s focus on books with advances over $250,000 was incorrect on both the facts and the law. She was "unpersuaded" by PRH/S&S arguments that new and existing competitors (including smaller indie publishers and upstarts like Zando and Astra) would preserve competition. She rejected the idea that literary agents would keep the merged firm in check. And she dismissed the argument that “internal competition” among PRH and S&S editors would keep competition robust, finding that PRH CEO’s Markus Dohle’s “extraordinary pledge” to allow internal bidding reflected his “awareness of how threatening the combined entity would be to authors and agents.”

#publishing #publishing industry #prh vs doj #penguin random house #simon and schuster #books #booklr #literary agents #us politics #this is HUGE!#writeblr

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