Publishers Begin to Report Full-Year Results 

As the various regulatory filings trickle into the folks at the SEC and beyond, we start to get a more in-depth picture of the health of the industry.  Unit sales are the closest measure we have to any “real-time” data in this industry, but eventually, profits are what keep the presses running—and BookScan reports can’t help us there.

Case in point, the 800-lb. Penguin (Random House) saw sales rise 4.8% in 2022 over 2021.  But that pesky inflation, and some exchange rate shenanigans, left PRH parent Bertelsmann with only bad news for their shareholders, as earnings dropped 11.8%.  The company didn’t blame the massive legal bills or the hefty $200 million kill fee from the failed Simon & Schuster deal, but those couldn’t have helped. 

Deal Reports in Decline

Another less scientific, but leading indicator is the number of publishing deals signed in a given period – and then reported to our friends at Publishers Marketplace (less scientifi...

 What is Happening at Simon & Schuster?

Unless you’re new to the Update, you’ve already heard about the trend-bucking results that S&S has been having for the last couple of years. And 2022 was no exception. Sales were up 10%, topping $1.1 billion. Even better, operating income jumped 16% to $248 million. Some enviable numbers, to be sure. All this, while CEO Jonathan Karp and his moneymaking colleagues worked under the cloud of uncertainty that was the pending—now imploded—sale of the company to Penguin Random House.

Yet, Simon & Schuster parent Paramount continues to say that the publishing juggernaut isn’t core to their video-based business and still intends to sell it off. Man, if that’s a “non-core asset,” I would like to have one or two “non-core assets.” Reuters reported that a Wall Street firm is in talks with Paramount to shop S&S with the target price being between $2 billion and $2.5 billion. If PRH was willing to pay $2.2 billion two and a half years ago, you have to...

Is the End in Sight for Amazon?

No, of course not.

But the multi-category behemoth just posted its first loss since 2014…and to the tune of a cool $2.7 billion.  That’s more than petty cash, even at one of the world’s biggest companies. While their holiday sales grew 9% from the prior year, Amazon took a huge loss on its investment in the electric truck maker, Rivian, whose stock value plunged 82% after Amazon took a 20% stake.  

So, it wasn’t just me…

The other drag on profits came from Amazon’s pandemic-fueled growth plan.  CEO Andy Jassy commented that in just a couple of years during the pandemic, Amazon nearly doubled the warehouse space that it had previously built over the prior 25 years.  Amazon has announced a pull-back on many of those new warehouses, and last month revealed a plan to cut 5% of its workforce (18,000 jobs) this year.  Another astonishing figure from Jassy that exacerbated the losses in 2022: Amazon grew its “last-mile transportation network”—aka, all those...

2022 is behind us. And while it was a down year for the industry as a whole, there are reasons for hope. But a little less hope if you work at Amazon.

Final (preliminary) Numbers

With 2022 in the books (I'm sure we’ve used that one before), sales of print books finished 6.5% behind 2021. The decline was anticipated, as the world returned to a sense of normalcy, and with it more opportunities for entertainment besides reading.  But, on the bright side of the street, 2022 was still 11.8% over pre-pandemic 2019.  Again, for those avid readers of the Update, you’ll recall that we were pleased as punch about 2019 while it was happening.  

Our analyst colleagues at BookScan note that a couple of symptoms from the pandemic carried on into 2022.  First, with fewer brick-and-mortar stores, it was harder for new books to get their footing, so frontlist sales continued to slip (down 10.5% from 2021). Then, with that pesky inflation still lurking in every corner of commerce, hardcover books too...

The Christmas shopping season is here—with not a bang, but a whimper. But more on that later. 

Dohle-d Out!

From the “Didn’t See That Coming” file, Penguin Random House CEO Markus Dohle shocked much, if not all, of the industry, abruptly announcing his departure from the apex publisher effective at the end of 2022.  He did oversee the company during the very long and enormously expensive—yet failed—effort to acquire fellow Big 5 competitor, Simon & Schuster. But that sure didn’t seem like something people were blaming on Dohle.

S&S parent, Paramount, did decide to take their $200 million ball and go home—in the form of the negotiated kill fee due if PRH was unable to affect a closure of the deal in two years. In theory, that puts one of the publishing industry’s crown jewels back on the auction block. But with the Justice Department’s trust-busting win last month, it’s hard to see any competing publishers trying to buy where PRH failed.  If they are big enough to fund a $2 billion (...

The Big 5 is still 5. 

Pan-caked! 

Just before leaving for her new appointment to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Florence Pan issued her ruling on our Trial of the Century – at least until another Big 5 publisher tries the same stunt.  

Determining that the proposed acquisition by Big #1 Penguin Random House of Big #3 Simon & Schuster would “substantially lessen competition in the market for the U.S. publishing rights to anticipated top-selling books,” Judge Pan officially blocked the merger.  PRH has threatened to appeal, but some sources aren’t so sure that S&S parent Paramount will be willing to wait around.

In an interesting deal point, the original agreement between the publishing rivals included a $200 million expiration fee if the deal wasn’t consummated within 2 years of the November 24, 2020, agreement date. With S&S still raking in record sales and even higher profits (see below), maybe the media/movie giant will think twice about keeping the enormous kil...

We all love the fall.  Crisp temperatures, colorful trees, and—best of all—football.  But this year, it’s more than just the leaves that are falling.

3rd Quarter Results Head South for the Winter

The early results are in (who’s ready for election season?!), and the good people at NPD BookScan are telling us the results are not good. Through the first nine months of 2022, book sales have slid 4.8% below the same period in 2021. Adult fiction readers answered the bell, driving sales up an industry-best 9.2% for the year thus far. But in the all-important category of adult non-fiction, the bestselling book this year is “Atomic Habits” by James Clear—which came out 4 years ago! (I hear it’s pretty good).

At HarperCollins, the fall has ushered in a falling headcount.  In what might be the direst harbinger in this month’s Market Update, the Big 5 publisher (or is it 4 now?) announced an “elimination of a small [undisclosed] number of positions.”  CEO Brian Murray also signaled a hiring fr...

Writing is hard. There’s no way around it. As the old saying goes, “If it were easy, everyone would be doing it.” What often makes writing worth doing is that challenge. It’s putting pen to paper in order to make sense of our thoughts and share them with others. That type of work takes inspiration. 

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Cue the marching band….

First Half Reports

With the publishing industry’s first half of 2022 in the books (see what I did there?), we all feel pretty good about the unnoteworthy results: flat.  If you’ve been with the Update for the last year or two, you know that the industry has been rocking and rolling (intentionally mixing metaphors because it’s fun).

Through June 30, 2022, trade book sales were hanging in there with the same period for 2021. The American Association of Publishers (AAP) reported survey results with sales off only 1.6% for the first six months of the year.  Adult sales fell 2.6%, but children and YA sales picked up much of the slack, coming in at 4.3% over 2021.  

Corporate earnings reports for Q2 are here, with publishing hot-shot—and the focus of so much courtroom drama of late—Simon & Schuster still crushing it. S&S saw revenues increase 34% and profits jump 54% over Q2 2021, with CEO Jonathan Karp giving special thanks to #BookTok darling Colleen Hoover.  

For those of us who majored in Economics, the dreaded word “recession” always seemed straightforward. You’re either in one, or you’re not. While the economy has become rather nuanced in the first few years of the ‘20s, the downward pressures are clearly being felt. Except in some very rare situations, books are the definition of a discretionary purchase. So, a downturn—whether or not you want to call it a recession—is definitely going to rear its ugly head here in the Update.

The folks at Variety conducted a survey in early July and found that 55% of U.S. adults expected to reduce their spending on entertainment in a recession (a category that includes books). Only 10% said that none of their spending habits would change in the event of a recession, to which their credit card companies shouted “hooray.”

Amazon Down!

Regardless of what the politicians might be telling us, the fact is that Amazon saw a drop in revenues from its online business of 4% in the second quarter. If that’s no...