Is Simon marrying Hans? Or is Jack-of-all-trades settling simply for a good craddle? On Penguin Random House acquiring Simon and Schuster.

First and foremost, I have no clue what regulators will say about the purchase. This is not my turf. But I have a couple of observations on the underlying stories in the move of German Bertelsmann group, parent of Penguin Random House, picking up the 1924 founded book publishing jewel, Simon and Schuster, for $2.175 bn.

In terms of turnover, Simon and Schuster is relevant for Penguin Random House (PRH), but certainly not a game changer.  But the relevance lies underneath that surface perhaps.

#1 An ironic tale

All the sales reports and revenue banked from John Bolton’s „The Room Where It Happened„, Bob Woodward’s “ Rage„, and Mary L. Trump’s „Too Much and Never Enough“ will be consolidated, together with earnings from Barack Obama’s „A Promised Land“ in 1745 Broadway, New York City, and then reported to Gütersloh (around 100,000 inhabitants), North Rhine-Westphalia, South-West of Teutoburg Forest, Germany, home of Bertelsmann.

Speaking symbolics, we may see here a reflection on the loss of American supremacy in the globalized cultural footprint.

This does not mean, of course, that some obscure people from German backwaters would direct what is fit to be printed in New York City, certainly not. Even without Simon and Schuster, German PRH revenue accounts for a mere 7% of PRH global, and editorial decisions are made in New York, not Gütersloh, already for many years. But no US power game may have an upper hand under such an umbrella, when already in 2020, well before the deal, any efforts failed in challenging Simon and Schuster’s controversial books on American politics.

So, ‚Simon‘ is adopted by ‚Hans‘ in a way, rather than married, but Hans and Simon have each a colorful, adult persona already, besides Hans‘ clear German roots.

Much more relevant is the second point.

#2 A global strategic bet

Since German Bertelsmann acquired Random House, for $1.8bn in 1998 – back then, as much as today, the world’s largest consumer book publisher, and a strategic expansion that signaled „globalization“ to the cozy, national emporiums of books and reading -, a lot of mergers and acquisitions and restructurings took place in the global book business. But the odd riddle of what is the path to success remains unsolved:

Is that consolidation about scale – having more books, more authors, more markets under one company’s clout – or is it about scope – controlling books plus movies plus games plus whatever other form or format for the best exploitation of (‚authors‘, or ‚creators‘) intelectual property?

Not long ago, the French media empire of Vivendi acquired the country’s second largest book publisher, Editis, in the clear ambition of reading these books first hand, for subsequent cross-media exploitation. Author platforms, from Chinese Tencent Literature to Canadian/global Wattpad launched ‚Studio‘ divisions to do just this, turning stories into other formats. Netflix has developed multiple axes to lure (often book) authors to turn stories into TV formats.

Bertelsmann is clearly a multimedia behemoth, with a turnover of over 18 bnEUR coming from TV, books, magazines, music, education, services and print.

But PRH, under its current CEO Markus Dohle, has a 100 percent focus on – books. Fullstop. „A very happy Dohle told PW today was a ‚good day for books, book publishing, and reading.‚” (Publishers Weekly today)

Of course, Dohle includes under ‚books‘ any format, print, ebook, audiobook, and distribution model (even as in the latter, he is more restrictive, when it comes to any all-in or digital lending offerings).

But strategically, not just in the actual acquisition of Simon and Schuster, but in a more long term view on consumers, Dohle’s is a bold bet.

Frankly, I like Dohle’s clear and bold stance (against my personal cross-media intuitions) – which is, by the way, mirrored by others throughout the industry internationally, which, by the way, is really under-reported.

Dohle argues that a book is a book and addresses a reader who is a reader (a clear cut target audience to adress – as opposed to any fluid other things). And, to give one example, by initiating right now a big initiative towards Latino reading audiences, in Spanish, Dohle turns this into a very inclusive – and not just exclusive white middle urban class strategy -, which is great!

I am more cautious though, and even deeply worried, how that bold stance of the global book market leader PRH can be translated into a viable formula, all the way down, to the lower levels in the global book and reading ecosystem. We need the many small and mid-sized independent ventures and platforms, beneath the corporations, and in the many small markets and the thematic niches, in order to maintain the diversity in what books – in whatever format – can offer to readers.

So perhaps the book as a „Jack of all trades“ format, which can incorporate any story and any piece of knowledge to any audience anywhere, oddly needs at first a good craddle, to develop its many talents, and thereupon go beyond?

At this point, I have no ready made answer, but encourage thinking, and input, and initiatives on that fragile bottom of our industry.

For more details about Penguin Random House, Simon and Schuster and the onging consolidation in global publishing, see the Global 50 World Ranking, a 260+ page report with facts, figures, 50 extensive company profiles and analysis, for free download at www.wischenbart.com/ranking – and subscribe to our newsletter to be updated on new research.

Addendum:

Source: Excerpt from Bertelsmann Annual Report, 2020, analysis by RWCC for this article.

A digital transformation in fast forward! How Covid-19 and resulting shifts in book consumption re-shaped book audiences in Brazil and in Germany in surprisingly similar ways.

When around 60% of Brazilians found themselves trapped in isolation for well over a month in March and April of 2020, the result was a significant and lasting raise in digital book consumption, which was especially strong for specific genre categories like fiction, nonfiction (which included educational) as well as children and young adult reading. Other traditionally more relevant genres for ebooks, such as romance or fantasy, had a more modest increase. And most importantly, the raise in digital reading continued once the restrictions had ended.

We witness an astoundingly similar set of transformations in reading habits in both Brazil and Germany, two otherwise deeply different environments for cultural practices, after conducting two studies together with the Brazilian and German teams of digital distributor and aggregator Bookwire. Surprisingly, the clearly different economic and educational differences between the two countries seem less pervasive than the impact of the crisis as an accelerator in an already ongoing digital transformation. (Find free download links at the end of this article)

Marcelo Gioia, Managing Director Brazil, also sees this boost, which has developed into a constantly growing demand, as confirmed by the past few months: „Within a very short time, publishers reacted in March 2020, when the pandemic reached Brazil, with discount campaigns or free products in order to quickly bring variety into the home of the reader with e-books in a lockdown. And it was worth it, because since then volume of sold units in these areas has grown immensely, we are seeing unprecedented growth. What would otherwise have taken two years, this year took just two months„.

Large growth potential for e-books – especially for non-fiction & children’s books

154 % increase in revenues for non-fiction and even 227 % increase for children’s and youth literature, especially during the lockdown period, brought both genres a new level of sold units and turnover from that point on. Supported by strategically planned marketing and/or influencer campaigns, publishers took advantage of the high demand to draw attention to their expertise and catalogue on a permanent basis.

The figures for the fictional categories of romance, crime, thriller or sci-fi, on the other hand, showed the same developments as before the pandemic.

New readers won – and kept

The most lasting effect of the growth during the strict isolation in March and April could be observed in the evaluation of the data until August – because although the growth figures naturally decreased due to further recreational activities that could be offered again, revenues continue to rise – as does the number of readers of digital publications.

For the publishing houses, this means that, in addition to higher volume of sold units, they also achieve significantly higher revenues. Here, too, it is above all the revenues of non-fiction books that have grown the most.

The practical learnings from the analysis will allow publishers, distributors and authors to re-orient their marketing and their distribution strategies, and narrow cast promotion for specific digital titles to specific consumer audiences.

The Covid-19 special report on Brazil builds on the “Digital Consumer Book Barometer” series developed by Wischenbart’s Content and Consulting team in a broad collaborative effort with leading international digital aggregators, notably Bookwire, with whom already in summer, a “Covid-Special” Germany, Austria and Switzerland had been released. Both reports build on real aggregated sales data provided by Bookwire for both Brazil and for the German language markets.

Download the Digital Barometer Covid19 German language markets here, and Brazil here.

All the previous reports in the Digital Consumer Book Barometers series can be downloaded for free from the websites of Bookwire and from www.global-ebook.com, a platform dedicated to data driven analysis of international ebook and digital audiobook markets.

ReBoot: Books, Business and Reading: A Research effort & virtual conference on post-pandemic publishing.

Virtual Conference on 13 October 2020
> Preparations Tracks in September
The key market lessons we learn for 2021

www.rebootbooks.org

A fact-finding process virtual conference on rebooting writing, reading and publishing in the post-pandemic world, proposed by Carlo Carrenho, Klaus-Peter Stegen and Rüdiger Wischenbart together with Premium Partner Publishers Weekly.

The virtual conference ReBoot Books, Business and Reading 2020, scheduled for Tuesday, October 13, 2020, will bring together key actors and thought leaders from both large as well as small independent publishing and bookselling organizations, infrastructure providers and innovators to assess the status of the international industry, and share perspectives & strategies for a ‘re-boot’.

The debates will build on a thorough fact-finding process in the Preparations Tracks (mid-August to mid-October 2020), with a rich body of data and case studies on recent market developments and strategic lessons as input for 4 thematic workshops.

Start your participation in the ReBoot process by downloading the detailed brochure below this article and filling out our online research questionnaire

ReBoot singles out 4 thematic pillars where the publishing world will be largely transformed from the immediate impact and subsequent fallout of the Covid-19 crisis.
• Consumers: Keeping eyes and ears on books.
• Publishers: Running virtual operations;
• Suppliers: Building hybrid & cross-media fulfillment process;
• Bookselling: Bringing books to consumers;

Each pillar will be explored in the Preparations Tracks in a ca. 2-hour online workshop, on Sept. 17, 18, 24 & 25.

Registration to ReBoot will allow participation in the Preparations Tracks, the workshops and the online ReBoot conference pus access to the documentation for a flat fee of 149 euros.

Sharing your insights through the online questionnaire is open to all interested book professionals.

Sponsors are invited to actively participate with a contribution of 5,000 euros from the beginning of the ReBoot process with the Preparations Tracks all the way to the conference proper, bringing their respective value propositions directly to the attention of participants.

For all details about the ReBoot agenda / registration / the research questionnaire / sponsorship opportunities, go to www.rebootbooks.org – updates at @rebootbooks

The Business of Books in Search of an Agora. How to re-define the debate about the business of books (and publishing industry conferences)?

Deutsche Fassung hier.

“How often do publishers ask their interns for advice?” Sara Sargent of Penguin Random House was raising the question, provocatively, yet with a smile, in her keynote address to the Publishers’ Forum in Berlin. She discussed how traditional book people can learn about new young audiences who seamlessly navigate between reading, binge watching, gaming, chatting, texting and posting, while having no remorse of blending their books and reading with all the other intake they have in their daily lives.

How, and where, and from whom do book people learn? This is the question I want to raise, after countless conversations over the past half year with colleagues and friends, recognizing that, at least in my view, in our industry we are dramatically short of functional, adequate, open and diverse enough platforms and formats to address

• Concerns around transforming markets and reading audiences;
• Insights on new audiences, not just for books and reading, but to new storytelling, new consumer practices, and crossovers between entertainment, education and access to knowledge;
• Learnings from successful, and failed, steps of transformation;
• Strategies for re-thinking the business of books and reading.

Closing the Publishing Forum in Berlin after 16 editions, and hearing from other organizers of professional discourses many similar acknowledgements of a loss of traction with stakeholders and audiences, I see a necessity to re-think the professional debate about the business of books (and as a result, of publishing conferences) on multiple levels:

1. We need better formats.
   The common mix of keynotes, panels and workshops results in debates that are either too general, or too granular, and hardly effective in feeding new insights and experiences across sectors and hierarchies;
   Too little preparation and formatting of input occurs before people gather for their exchange; and too little provision of tangible takeaways is given after they return to their routines;
   We spent most of the cost on airfare, hotels and fancy venues instead of investing in a smart mix of on-site and online interaction, before, during and after a convention.
2. The communities of participants need to be opened.
   Gatherings are too exclusive, bringing together people of similar functions and status, rather than cutting across hierarchies and experiences;
   Diversity and inclusiveness are neglected in their central relevance to the industry, by gender, but also by culture and background, ignoring the changed demographics in the societies that publishers are catering to;
   Input with data and learnings from other – neighboring or entirely alien – sectors must come as a key ingredient, not some exotic fancy.
3. Collaboration must become an organizing principle.
   How can industry stakeholders become owners, not customers of the debates and events?
   How can professional educational organizations, industry researchers and practitioners convene interactively?
   How can expectations and targets become guidelines in the curation of debates and events?

I have been running publishing programs in many ways since 1995, as coordinator for Austria as a guest of honor in Frankfurt, head of communications at the Frankfurt Book Fair, international director of BookExpo America, and now for six years as director of the Publishers’ Forum.

Today I am convinced that we must return to the drawing board, to re-design the agora for the book industry from scratch.

You are invited to help kicking off the discussion, and share your thoughts at agora@wischenbart.com – We will post excerpts and summaries here at www.booklab.info as a first step.