Book Publishers

Brief Excerpt from Industry Overview Chapter:

Companies in this industry produce, edit, market, and publish books in print, electronic, or audio format. The top global book publishers in the US are HarperCollins, McGraw-Hill Education, Scholastic, and Wiley. The other leading publishers are Hachette Livre (France), Penguin Random House (the UK), and Springer Nature (Germany).

COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE

Demand for books is driven by demographics and is largely resistant to economic cycles. The profitability of individual companies depends on product development and marketing. Large publishers have an advantage in bidding for new manuscripts or authors. Small and midsized publishers can succeed if they focus on a specific subject or market. The US industry is highly concentrated: the top 50 companies generate about 80% of revenue.

PRODUCTS, OPERATIONS & TECHNOLOGY

Major products include professional, technical, and scholarly books, adult trade books (general fiction and nonfiction titles) and textbooks, which account for about 20% each of US industry revenue.