Pranav Gupta thoughts on Penguin House acquiring Simon & Schuster

DARIYAGANJ, India - Jan. 8, 2021 - PRLog -- Penguin Random House- The United States giant book publishing company is just about to get bigger…

In a $2 billion deal that is, Viacom CBS has now agreed to sell Simon & Schuster to Penguin House. And what impact would that have on the publishing landscape?

I believe a major one!

A behemoth already, Penguin House after acquiring Simon & Schuster would have an unmatched position. Increasingly a winner-take-all industry, I am afraid this would not leave any space for other companies to healthily compete.

In many similar examples that I have seen and analysed earlier- per say Amazon, I have found that the company tends to exercise its authority in an unruly manner and severely abuse its power.

And it is not as if the book business has not had its fair share of merging, in the past decade we have witnessed a wave of consolidation of brands like Harlequin, Perseus Books, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

In an already sparsely populated industry, mainstream publishers have shrunk down from 5 to 4 -this is a biggie.

Not only does this take innovation out of the game, but it also narrows opportunities for proficient writers, signing amounts get smaller & smaller… with many authors even contemplating to leave writing.

As for Simon & Schuster the major sales drop has been caused by the Corona crisis.

The sales might have caused a domino effect on the entire literary ecosystem.

In the current scenario the bigger houses have an upper hand when it comes to negotiating with retailers like

Amazon, Barnes & Noble and the big box stores.

This also means there will be fewer chances for newbie or midlist authors and fewer potential buyers of their manuscripts.

Rest is yet to be seen and witnessed but as for now I think this change-up will become a big barrier for any new players that are yet to enter the market.

Leave alone equal competition, it is not even going to foster healthy competition.

Know more Pranav Gupta thoughts just click here - https://www.pranavgupta.me/my-thoughts-on-penguin-house-a...