“Consolidation” is the #WordoftheYear 2021 in the Book Business

A #publishing #XMas tale (and a few links for further #reading down below).

Frankfurt Skyline by night

What does Penguin Random House as the world’s largest consumer book publisher have in common with tiny German Schöffling Verlag? Certainly a mutual love for cats – as Schöffling’s iconic bestseller is the annually updated “Literary Cat Calendar“, and a good reason for the indie publisher’s recent acquisition by Swiss German Kampa Verlag. PRH has listed the sophisticated “Yoga For Cats” among the thousands of titles published worldwide.

Not cats though were the main driver for recent #takeovers among publishing ventures big and small, but a paramount appetite for “#bundling #strengths” through #acquisitions.

Consolidation is summing up in one buzzword what drives and reshapes the global bookbusiness in 2021 across the bord. But at closer scrutiny, a mind boggling variety of different models and trajectories has popped up in what consolidation means exactly. There is a US style “Big-buys-Not-so-big“, a Frenchprivate-billionnaire-bingo“, and a GermanNo-consolidation-here” (and yet, a lot of takeovers occurred in retail, led by Thalia Bücher GmbH, and now between indie publishers as Kampa founder Daniel Kampa announced in recent weeks acquisitions of 2 small indie presses, Austrian JungundJung, and German Schöffling). There is a Russian “oligarch-style”, or an “All-is-new” in Scandinavia with subscription overtaking per copy sales.

So I spent a good part of my working hours in 2021 at compiling data and analyzing trends around that consolidation in books.

You can watch my analysis at the Frankfurt CEOTalk ;

You can listen to it at CCC‘s podcast series;

You can download and read about it in the Global50 Publishing Ranking.

And please drop me a note with your own thoughts by email or on Twitter @wischenbart

As for the cats, you’ll find them here and here.

The Global50 International Publishing Ranking 2021 is out!

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The Global 50 International Publishing Ranking 2021 is ready for free download at www.wischenbart.com/ranking.com

55 leadling publishing groups worldwide in consumer books, educational, scientific and professional, listed by revenue from publishing activities, plus a detailed analysis of trends and company profiles with key data.

The Global 50 publishing ranking is updated every year since 2007, and published in cooperation with Bookdao (China), buchreport (Germany), Livres Hebdo (France) and Publishers Weekly (USA).

Sponsored by BOD and Bookwire.

 

 

 

A Preview on the Global 50 World Publishing Ranking 2021

Breaks, but no breakdowns: The pandemic and its impact on the international book business” reads the headline of a new preview of the Global 50 World Publishing Ranking 2021.

Generic chart Illustration for White Paper Preview Global 50 Publishing Ranking 2021

Download your free copy of this White Paper at Preview Global 50 2021
This ‘Preview’ to the next Global 50 looks specifically at the following topics:
– The impact of the pandemic on exemplary leading publishing corporations;
– The drivers behind initially unexpected positive market developments;
– The acceleration of business innovation triggered during the pandemic, with
special highlights on digital, audiobooks and subscription models;
– The opening gap in market developments between selected European countries;
– The ongoing surge in competition, driving industry consolidation, new alliances
and powerful impulses from neighboring media sectors;
– The transformative dynamics of the expanding “network and platform” economy
as it reshapes book consumption.

The complete Global 50 World Publishing Ranking will be released by the end of August 2021 at www.wischenbart.com/ranking.

We thank our sponsors of the Global 50, namely BOD, Bookwire, knk and Plureos for their generous and ongoing support.

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