Book Publishing in the US, 2000-2004

Is Your Job Already Outsourced? (part 1 of 3)

Industry Concentration

In my previous blog series on “Banks and People,” I traced how the financial sector is in the process of becoming “concentrated” as a result of the financial crisis. “Concentration” simply means that the share of the market for each bank still standing has increased. In the past year we’ve lost over 140 banks in the US. We’ve lost 180 banks since the financial crisis began. Many more bank failures are expected this year.

Concentration within any industry brings dangers associated with monopoly or oligopoly power at the top. “Rent-seeking” is also found when economic power is concentrated. Rent-seeking is the act of legally appropriating wealth created by other people. Rent-seeking tends to promote economic inequality among individuals and/or among groups of individuals.

But while our attention has been focused on the financial crisis and bank failures, we’ve overlooked the huge foundational shifts taking place in many other sectors of the US economy.  Concentration isn’t just taking place in the banking industry, and concentration has been going not just for a couple years, but during the whole decade.

In this series of three posts, I’ll trace what’s happened in the publishing industry over the past decade as an example. The same pattern found in book publishing also applies to many other parts in our economy.

Book Publishing Industry Concentration 2000-2004

The entire American book publishing industry is simultaneously growing and contracting. Publishing is going global, yet the traditional publishing market for authors’ writings is shrinking. You probably realize that independent bookstores are closing, and small presses are being sold to bigger presses that in turn are being swallowed up by even bigger companies. But you may not know that more authors than ever are self-publishing their own books.

You’ll find a comprehensive overview about these shifts in all creative fields, including publishing, and the implications for businesses that serve creative people in David Mathison’s Be The Media. David’s book is an epic description of the battle going on for control of creative endeavors on and off of the Internet during this decade.

But here’s my take on the print book publishing industry, having watched it closely for over thirty years. Our publishing industry is no longer “our” publishing industry.

Even if you didn’t lose your job during the financial crisis, you may find it’s not with the same employer you had back in the 1990s! In fact, these days your company’s “boss” is very likely to be sitting in an office in another country. Your job in the United States is the one being outsourced by a foreign firm.

Who Owned Whom in 2004:

Bertlesmann, a German company, owned these publishers:

• Alfred A. Knopf
• Ballantine
• Broadway
• Doubleday
• Pantheon
• Random House

Thompson [now Thompson Reuters], a Canadian Company, owned these publishers:

• Brooks Cole
• Course
• Gale
• Southwestern Educational
• Thompson Learning
• Wadsworth
• Westlaw

Taylor and Francis, a British Company [now owned by Informa plc], owned these publishers:

• Martin Dunitz
• Europa Publications
• Gordon & Breach
• Curzon Press
• Fitzroy Dearborn
• Garland Science
• Bios Scientific Publishers Limited
• Frank Cass
• CRC Press
• Canadian-owned Routledge Group (this includes Routledge, Spon Press, and Carfax)

As you can see, at the start of the 21st century, most large book publishers in the US came to be bought out by foreign companies. Five years later the picture is even more incredible. The book publishing industry has truly re-invented itself. Today it is no longer even the “publishing” industry!

Nancy Humphreys © 2010

Next time:  “Traditional Global Publishing, 2005-2010”