Book Publishing

The exact size of the book publishing industry is difficult to determine because many small publishers are privately owned and thus do not report their sales, and because the industry has become greatly consolidated in recent years with a few large publishers dominating the global market. Thus a publisher based in Germany (such as Bertelsmann) might have a significant market share in the United States, but not break down its sales in terms of geographic distribution, or even be required to report them at all if the company is privately held. According to Andre Schiffrin, an observer of the book publishing industry, more than 93 percent of American book sales come from only 20 companies despite the fact that there are more than 40,000 companies listed as book publishers in the United States (Reid, 2000, p. 21).

Despite this, industry analysts do try to estimate the size of the market. According to the Book Industry Study Group (BISG), sales of books in the United States topped $

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count distribution; in other cases, the publisher will sell the backlist to distributors ("A Manager," 1998, p. 20). Wholesalers (distributors) in the publishing business serve essentially the same function as they do in other manufacturing industries. They purchase large quantities of books from publishers and sell them to retailers. In some cases, distributors focus on a particular type of book or industry; in other cases, they are geographicallybased. Most distributors (such as Bookworld) serve many different publishers (Bookworld buys from more than 140 publishers). Wholesalers often employ their own salesforces in order to "push" books through the distribution channel to retailers. Thus publishers may arrange for some marketing for books, but the store-level selling is done by wholesale personnel ("A Manager," 1998, p. 20). Recent Developments During the late 1990s, the book publishing industry underwent a significant number of mergers and acquisitions. Viacom divested Simon & Schuster, and Random House was sold to Bertelsmann. These two publishers have participated in the industry for a long time, and industry analysts were surprised that they would be sold. At that point, it became possible that any book publish
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