Seven
of the top 10 publishers worldwide suffered a drop in revenue, with the biggest
decline coming from the world’s largest publisher, Pearson.
The
UK publisher saw a drop in revenue of over one billion dollars – about the
total revenue for the 16th largest publisher, Shveisha, in Japan.
The
United States only featured two companies in the top 10 – McGraw-Hill and
Wiley. Reed Elsevier of RELX Group, is
partially American owned and would represent a third U.S. company in the top
10. The U.S. is also home to the 11th, 12th, 13th,
and 14th, in part or whole.
Japan,
Germany, U.K. and the U.S. dominate the top 25.
The
biggest university press is Oxford University.
With 2016 revenue of 939 million dollars, it is the 20th largest
publisher in the world. It’s larger than
Simon Schuster. Cambridge University
Press, in the U.K. is the second largest university press, ranking 36th
overall.
German-owned
Penguin Random House (Bertelsmann) ranked 4th, with revenue of
$3.697 billion.
The
publisher to make the biggest leap of the Top 50 in the world is Mondador; of
Italy. It went from 39th to
28th in one year, jumping 11 spots and seeing its revenue exploded by
nearly 50% to 501 million dollars. Other
big gainers include Brazil’s Somos, which almost doubled its revenue, South
Korea’s Kyouon, and Russia’s Eksmo – AST.
29
of 50 earned less revenue than a year ago.
Just
because revenue may have declined for many, doesn’t mean profits sagged. Further, many of these companies are huge
conglomerates and sometimes money on the books looks different than actual
transactions that pertain specifically to publishing. Lastly, there are many more companies not
ranked on the list and collectively, they could prove to be profitable, so it’s
hard to say with certainty if publishing had a good year, but judging by the big
boys, revenue appears to be down.
So
what might this mean for the book industry as it seeks growth?
Authors
and book publishers continue to chase what sells and will no doubt win big on
occasion and then lose on its other bets.
That’s how it’s always been.
Most books don’t do well but as an industry, the book world can be profitable.
Most books don’t do well but as an industry, the book world can be profitable.
But
profits and publishing often don’t get spoken of. You’re in publishing because you love books. The key’s not to print them in red ink.
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