The biggest publishing industry news going
around is the merger between Penguin and Random House. One is a
grand old dame,
a queen of the industry, old money, and the other a brash young
united states
of ‘once known but now anonymous’ publishers – think Fifty
Shades.
(Interestingly, Rupert Murdock apparently offered to buy Penguin
for GBP 1
billion, but was rebuffed. The queen was not willing to stoop
that low?)
Fittingly, the new entity is called Penguin Random House, so the
monarch gets to
keep her name, even if not the power. Various sources say
that it could take
up to a year (earliest mid-2013) for final approval and that, in
the meantime,
it’s business as usual.
Still, the aftershocks
running through the
industry will take a while to settle, if at all. Together, the
new group will
control 25% of the market, which might be scary, but is not; they
controlled it
anyway. "From the perspective of a reader, author or agent there
won't be
very much change in the day-to-day operations of the companies,"
says John
Makinson, the current CEO of Penguin and the future chairman of
the new
company. The CEO of the new company will be Markus Dohle ,
currently chief
executive of Random House.
That this is a reaction to
new realities in
the book industry is a no brainer. But which reality,
specifically? It is
easier to understand what Random House would want from Penguin;
their back list
and classics are to die for. Besides, they also do their own
distribution. In
Malaysia, distribution of Penguin books used to be handled by
STP (later by Times,
later still by Pansing) before the parent company set up their
own warehouse
and operations here. (Pearson also distributes Faber.) It’s
unclear if
distribution will be an expertise Penguin will bring to the
merger.
What does Penguin get from
the merger?
Protection? Penguin US was one of the two publishers (the other
being
Macmillan) that declined to settle the civil antitrust case
brought by the Department of Justice (DOJ).
(Random House was not named in the action.) Apple has been
quoted as saying
that Amazon is playing the DOJ like a violin. So will one and
one make three?
Despite all the usual
platitudes following
the merger, one wonders if something more serious is afoot? The merger will make
Penguin Random House the
largest book publisher in the world.
Large enough to take on Amazon? Large enough not to have
to live in terror of
Amazon’s control over that ‘buy’ button? Large enough to set up
a distribution network
to fight Tyrannosaurus Rex on its own turf?
It will certainly be good
for the industry
if that first beast is kept under control, but having two predatory
beasts roaming
the earth is not very comforting either. It's like Jurassic Park? I’m not
sure if it's
scary or comforting. I prefer a world with no superpowers, but
who’s listening?
