Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg
The less important, to me, measure is financial results. Book publishing is doing tremendously better there than what I think is the clearest point of comparison, newspapers. For example:
Penguin Random House Posts Record Profit for 2015
Why is it that book publishers are doing better than newspaper publishers? Maybe it's because of what Scarpad is complaining about! |
Hmmm. That is interesting. Independents are growing. I would be surprised if the total market is growing significantly.
The numbers have to add up somehow. So, I peaked at the link. The record profit is all due to cost savings from a merger. Actual sales are down a bit (2.1%). Similarly, sales are flat at other publishers.
On the other hand, I would have guessed the growth in independent authors and established authors selling backlist books had grown much more than the publisher numbers would predict. Possibly I am overestimating the growth in direct to consumer books because I purchase an increasing number of those.
Another possibility is that the small imprint press is disappearing and the independents are taking from them rather than the name publishers? It seems to me I have heard of a number of closures lately?