The Globe and Mail
Anna Porter
Published February 12, 2021
Why should anybody care when publishing house Penguin Random House swallows competitor Simon & Schuster?
Back last November when Penguin Random House (PRH) announced its successful bid to buy Simon & Schuster, there was a flurry of comment in the United States. The New York Times protested that the new, enlarged company would “profoundly reshape the industry, increasingly a winner-take-all business.” The Washington Post declared that the deal would be bad for readers: “As the number of publishers shrinks, authors find themselves with fewer potential buyers for their proposals and manuscripts. Bookstores are beholden to a smaller number of distributors. And readers face a shelf of titles further dominated by familiar bestsellers most likely to earn big payouts for massive corporations.”