Penguin Pandemic
September 20, 2020 8:17 AM Subscribe
Madeline McIntosh and the Rise of Penguin Random House. "After a steep drop at the start of the pandemic, book sales not only recovered but surged. Unit sales of print books are up nearly 6 percent over last year...and e-book and digital audiobook sales have risen by double digits. Reading, it turns out, is an ideal experience in quarantine...."People were watching a lot of Netflix, but then they needed a break...” Ms. McIntosh said. “A book is the most uniquely, beautifully designed product to have with you in lockdown.”
"While no one expected a pandemic, Penguin Random House was, in a weird way, prepared for the new retail reality. The company has grown even more dominant in recent months in part because Ms. McIntosh, who took over two and a half years ago, and other leaders foresaw a future in which online book sales would vastly outstrip physical retail, but print books would continue to be a popular and lucrative format."
"While no one expected a pandemic, Penguin Random House was, in a weird way, prepared for the new retail reality. The company has grown even more dominant in recent months in part because Ms. McIntosh, who took over two and a half years ago, and other leaders foresaw a future in which online book sales would vastly outstrip physical retail, but print books would continue to be a popular and lucrative format."
Well, that was a depressing article that sounded from the bit quoted here like it might be a non-depressing article. Although maybe I should be glad that industry consolidation and data-driven decision-making means that nothing interesting will ever be published again, because it means that I'll finally have time to catch up on my to-read pile of all the interesting books that were published in the past.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 10:01 AM on September 20, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 10:01 AM on September 20, 2020 [3 favorites]
As an author with a book coming out from PRH next spring, I found this article the opposite of depressing. I promise to try to be interesting.
posted by escabeche at 10:14 AM on September 20, 2020 [9 favorites]
posted by escabeche at 10:14 AM on September 20, 2020 [9 favorites]
Yes, what was depressing? PRH and the other major publishers continue to publish more wonderful books each year than any of us can read in many, many lifetimes.
posted by PhineasGage at 10:21 AM on September 20, 2020
posted by PhineasGage at 10:21 AM on September 20, 2020
I mean, the whole point is that McIntosh and Penguin Random House are thriving because she has figured out how to be dominant in a market for books where only the bestsellers sell. Unless your book gets pushed to the top of the Amazon algorithm and gets shelf space in Target and Costco, you're not going to sell much of anything. But in that atmosphere, there's no reason to take a chance on something novel or even the slightest bit risky. A lot of best-sellers aren't even new: it's all fifty-year-old picture books and that fucking Crawdads book:
As publishing becomes even more of a winner-take-all business, Penguin Random House’s dominance represents the culmination of decades-long trends that have made the industry more profit focused, consolidated, undifferentiated and averse to risk.posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 10:37 AM on September 20, 2020 [4 favorites]
Like Hollywood, which pours resources into universe-scale superhero franchises that are nearly guaranteed to get an audience, publishing has become increasingly reliant on blockbusters — a development that has left beginner and midlist authors struggling. Mass-market retailers like Target, Walmart and Costco — whose share of book sales has soared during the pandemic — buy books that are surefire hits, and often wait for an unproven author to hit the best-seller list before they even order copies.
“There are a few winners and there are far, far fewer books around the break-even point, and there are more that lose,” said Mike Shatzkin, the founder and chief executive of Idea Logical, which analyzes the book business. “The medium-sized publishers can’t sustain themselves anymore. They can’t compete for the really big titles, so they get bought.”
The shift to online retail amplifies the trend. Amazon’s algorithms showcase books that are already selling well, so more people see those books and more people buy them. Publishers have less control over what readers see online than what they encounter in a store, so they funnel more marketing and advertising dollars into titles that are preordained successes.
“The impact on literary culture is more homogenization, which is only going to accelerate now,” said Dennis Johnson, a co-publisher of Melville House, an independent press.
I understand that argument and hear it frequently, but that's a comparison with an imaginary golden age. More books are available then ever before, and authors have more options for getting their books to readers then ever before.
During all his decades of curmudgeonly commentating, Dennis Johnson has built Melville House into a successful small publishing company, and there are hundreds of others, all of whom have MORE chance to thrive when the conglomerate publishers focus on more mainstream books. (Why does he even give a shit what PRH does? He's in a different business, by his own admission.)
Further, new self-publishing options have enabled countless authors to sell millions of books to readers. Unlike auteurs in the movie business, one doesn't need access to a limited number of outlets to put one's work in front of audiences. As the article points out, McIntosh was at the forefront of recognizing how important digital distribution would be, which means the infinite bookstore, for PRH as well as for Taylor-the-Self-Publisher.
PRH and the other corporate publishers are publishing more titles than ever before. More small publishers exist than ever before. More self-publishing options exist than ever before. This is the best time ever to be an author, no matter what genre or style you are writing in.
posted by PhineasGage at 11:57 AM on September 20, 2020 [3 favorites]
During all his decades of curmudgeonly commentating, Dennis Johnson has built Melville House into a successful small publishing company, and there are hundreds of others, all of whom have MORE chance to thrive when the conglomerate publishers focus on more mainstream books. (Why does he even give a shit what PRH does? He's in a different business, by his own admission.)
Further, new self-publishing options have enabled countless authors to sell millions of books to readers. Unlike auteurs in the movie business, one doesn't need access to a limited number of outlets to put one's work in front of audiences. As the article points out, McIntosh was at the forefront of recognizing how important digital distribution would be, which means the infinite bookstore, for PRH as well as for Taylor-the-Self-Publisher.
PRH and the other corporate publishers are publishing more titles than ever before. More small publishers exist than ever before. More self-publishing options exist than ever before. This is the best time ever to be an author, no matter what genre or style you are writing in.
posted by PhineasGage at 11:57 AM on September 20, 2020 [3 favorites]
People are buying so many books that the two biggest printers in the United States can’t produce enough copies.Wow!
The golden age for intuitive, midlist publishing is what, the 1930s to 1960s in New York? Boozy lunches, personal relationships, a publisher who lets a few authors ride a long time on an advance? But contemporaneous writing describes those businesses as slowly spending down inherited Gilded Age fortunes, and we don’t remember most of them for their racial inclusion.
Every time I worry about the vanishing midlist, I should read something obscure and review it somewhere not-obscure.
posted by clew at 1:22 PM on September 20, 2020 [1 favorite]
I still think they should have named the company Random Penguin.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 1:45 PM on September 20, 2020 [10 favorites]
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 1:45 PM on September 20, 2020 [10 favorites]
Random House Penguin. in a wee knitted jumper
posted by clew at 2:02 PM on September 20, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by clew at 2:02 PM on September 20, 2020 [4 favorites]
>maybe I should be glad that industry consolidation and data-driven decision-making means that nothing interesting will ever be published again
It's OK out here on the Long Tail. You don't have to read Canon, and you also don't have to read Oprah's or Richard & Judy's Book Club pick. Good art will still be written and recommended to you by people you trust -- it'll have to be curated differently. Even pulp entertainment can be good art that you enjoy for the reasons you alone have. We've got two maxims: f__k the gatekeepers; and f__k all the people who insist you should have read something without also being able to tell you why, and why they see it as an essential use of your valuable time.
posted by k3ninho at 1:44 AM on September 21, 2020 [2 favorites]
It's OK out here on the Long Tail. You don't have to read Canon, and you also don't have to read Oprah's or Richard & Judy's Book Club pick. Good art will still be written and recommended to you by people you trust -- it'll have to be curated differently. Even pulp entertainment can be good art that you enjoy for the reasons you alone have. We've got two maxims: f__k the gatekeepers; and f__k all the people who insist you should have read something without also being able to tell you why, and why they see it as an essential use of your valuable time.
posted by k3ninho at 1:44 AM on September 21, 2020 [2 favorites]
It'll probably end up like the recording industry, where the Warners and Universals churning out reliably bankable blockbuster-scale content like Coldplay and Kanye West, and beneath them is an ecosystem of indie labels, all the way down to one-person Bandcamp pages, nurturing artists who are famous to 15 or more people, with some names bubbling up in return for massive advances, and some indie labels being acquired and subsumed into marques of the majors.
posted by acb at 2:10 PM on September 21, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by acb at 2:10 PM on September 21, 2020 [2 favorites]
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