Book Publishers
Industry Profile Report
Dive Deep into the industry with a 25+ page industry report (pdf format) including the following chapters
Industry Overview Current Conditions, Industry Structure, How Firms Operate, Industry Trends, Credit Underwriting & Risks, and Industry Forecast.
Call Preparation Call Prep Questions, Industry Terms, and Weblinks.
Financial Insights Working Capital, Capital Financing, Business Valuation, and Financial Benchmarks.
Industry Profile Excerpts
Industry Overview
The 2,100 book publishers in the US perform design, editing, and marketing activities necessary for producing and distributing books in print, electronic, or audio form. Book categories include the Trade sector, learning and classroom materials for K-12 education, Higher Education books and materials, and professional, technical or scholarly journals. The Trade sector can be broken into Adult Fiction, Adult Non-Fiction, Juvenile Fiction, Juvenile Non-Fiction, and Religion subcategories.
Growth of Self-Publishing
Ten years ago, authors were dependent on book publishers to reach readers, but today authors have the option of self-publishing their work in either eBook or printed formats.
Competition from Alternative Media
Trade books compete with other forms of entertainment for consumers’ time and dollars.
Industry size & Structure
The average book publisher operates a single location, has 26-27 employees, and generates about $14 million in annual revenue.
- The US book publishing industry consists of about 2,100 firms that employ 55,400 workers and generate $29 billion in annual revenue.
- The US book publishing industry sells 2-3 billion units annually, according to the Association of American Publishers.
- The industry consists of many small publishers (63% of establishments have less than five employees) but is concentrated, as the largest 20 firms represent 74% of industry revenue.
- The "Big Five" US trade book publishers are Hatchette Book Group (part of French media company, Lagardere), HarperCollins (a subsidiary of News Corp.), MacMillan Publishers (part of Germany's Holtzbrinck Publishing Group), Penguin Random House (jointly-owned by Germany's Bertelsmann) and Simon and Schuster (owned by CBS Corporation).
- Large textbook publishers include Pearson, Cengage, McGraw-Hill Education, Scholastic, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
- Large publishers of professional and technical books include RELX Group (formerly Reed Elsevier, UK-based) and Thompson Reuters.
Industry Forecast
Book Publishers Industry Growth
Recent Developments
Nov 14, 2024 - Major Publishers Sue Florida
- Six major book publishers sued the state of Florida over what they call an “unconstitutional” law that allows challenges to books in school libraries. Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, Macmillan Publishers, Simon & Schuster, and Sourcebooks, along with The Authors Guild and some prominent book authors, argue that book bans have surged -- in violation of the First Amendment -- because of the passage of Florida’s 2023 education bill. The bill allows parents to try to remove materials from schools if they are seen as pornographic by the school boards. The complaint stated that hundreds of books have been banned. “By so broadly regulating the display and availability of books that are constitutionally protected as to at least a significant number of students, these restrictions—as interpreted and enforced by the State of Florida—violate the First Amendment because they are impermissibly overbroad content-based restrictions,” the plaintiffs said in the lawsuit.
- A US appeals court sided with four major book publishers in their argument that the nonprofit Internet Archive's "large scale" copying and distribution of entire books online for free did not amount to "fair use." Publishers Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, John Wiley & Sons, and Penguin Random House accused the nonprofit of infringing copyrights in 127 books from authors like Malcolm Gladwell, C.S. Lewis, Toni Morrison, J.D. Salinger, and Elie Wiesel by making the books freely available through its Free Digital Library. The archive, which hosts more than 3.2 million copies of copyrighted books on its website, contended that the library was transformative because it made lending more convenient and served the public interest by promoting "access to knowledge." Circuit Judge Beth Robinson said in the decision that the archive merely supplanted the original books rather than transform them into "something new."
- The comic book and periodical industry is experiencing consolidation of small companies and acquisition of large companies by even larger, multi-genre publishers, according to information sector news site Clownfish TV. Boom! Studios recently sold itself to Penguin Random House, for example, and Dark Horse sold to Embracer Group in 2021. Many small comic book firms struggle financially, leading to mergers and to creators seeking movie and animation deals for financial success, according to Clownfish TV. Some larger comic book companies were started with the intention of selling them to major publishing firms. The comic book industry is facing distribution changes and low sales, but there is still high demand for certain products, according to Clownfish TV.
- Book publishing industry employment increased moderately during the first nine months of 2024 while wages for nonsupervisory employees decreased slightly, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Personal consumption expenditures, an indicator of book sales, increased slightly during the first six months of 2024, according to the US Bureau of Economic Analysis.
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