[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by kennyc

This.

Unlike with other big publishers, HarperCollins financials are separately reported:

http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2014...-by-divergent/

So, if we are all still here in a couple years, we will be able to put this to a test.

Apache and kennyc: I suppose you aren't really thinking that HarperCollins is literally going extinct in the foreseeable future. Or are you?

If not, what is your prediction?

My contrary prediction is that they will remain in business, with year-to-year profit changes continuing to be driven by whether they have mega-hits rather than some long term trend.

It's possible that, in three years, you'll be saying they are dying, and I'll be saying they just didn't have a hit that year. I realize nothing can really be proven here, but we still could try to ask what it would take to show either that the alleged Manhattan mafia has successfully withstood the digital transition, or that they are, indeed, pea brains.

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Where the whole "literary culture" argument is laughed at by the reality that the books the BPHs most value are teen vampire romances starring clinically depressed girls or shoot-em ups starring cookie cutter gritty vet tough guys or soft porn for housewives. That is where the money that lines the BPH pockets comes from, tearjerkers and shoot'em ups, not "literate angsty coming of age stories"; mass entertainment.

If I was finding a shortage of BPH books worth reading, I might agree with you that pornography and vampire-themed narrative fiction was a problem, or get heebie-jeebees over the rise of Scholastic. But since I'm not finding a shortage of what interests me -- and not finding that indie or university press books interest me more -- the fact that BPH's publish lots of books I wouldn't care for is harmless.

And, according to this, the vampire craze is dying a natural death:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/12/bu...tion.html?_r=0