Penguin Random House

Penguin Random House parent company Bertelsmann has confirmed that it is interested in acquiring Simon & Schuster once ViacomCBS begins to again actively shop the country's third largest trade publishing house after the pandemic fades Shortly after Viacom and CBS merged, the newly-formed company placed S&S on the sales block.

Experienced authors tend to chastise vanity press victims for not doing sufficient research, but the murky web of vanity partnerships - and the uncritical coverage which invariably accompanies same - makes it difficult for newer writers to chart a safe path.  Read more

Al-Khalili's book is one of three Ladybird Expert titles published so far this year. It joins Evolution, by geneticist Steve Jones, and Climate Change, by Prince Charles, Tony Juniper and Emily Shuckburgh, in the newest iteration of one of the most lucrative publishing wheezes of the decade - to recreate the children's books for adults.  Read more

The bestseller lists in the UK this past Christmas concealed a curious story, one that raises interesting questions about who "owns" ideas and who - if anyone - copied whom. It's a saga that some see as a David and Goliath tale of the big bad conglomerate allegedly ripping off the plucky independent artist/author/publisher.  Read more

We're going to go out on a limb here and make a sweeping prediction, one that hopefully will be ridiculed in fifty years: consumers do not buy books directly from the publisher. Why not? Because in most cases, they don't know who the publisher is. In even more dire news for publishers, consumers also don't care who the publisher is.