How the Publishing Industry Changes Affect Both Writers and Readers

As the publishing industry changes, writers and readers are left with fewer choices than before in the traditional publishing realm

As if the publishing industry wasn’t tough enough already, there are many changes facing both writers and readers that could change the publishing industry as we know it.

https://twitter.com/arvidkahl/status/1581992627867910144

Coming across a tweet thread by Arvid Kahl, it is evident that the biggest shakeup rippling across the publishing realm comes from the traditional publishing side.

In the wake of the rise of the self-publishing side of the industry, publishing houses have begun to rework their plans. To find ways to keep delivering content to readers and to keep their own businesses flourishing. And in their effort to do so, some of the larger publishing houses have begun acquisitions of other publishing houses.

For example, the number of large publishers has shrunk from ‘The Big 5 Publishers’ to ‘The Big 4 Publishers’.

Why is this a problem? Because as of right now, there are an estimated 2,060 small publishing houses in the US in 2022. But, as wonderful as an option as those small publishers are to have, nearly a small fraction of those publishers have the capability to market and release your book at the capacity of one of ‘The Big 4 Publishers’.

According to https://jessebcreative.com/:

“Now, including audiobook, ebook, digital, and print, Penguin Random house owns and has acquired over 250 imprints. HarperCollins and Macmillan each own over 50. Hachette over 30. Simon & Schuster owned almost 70, all of which now stand under Penguin’s umbrella. The end result of this all? Penguin Random House now publishes an estimated ⅓ of all books sold in the United States.”- Jessica B. Creative.

With this much power in the realm of books printed, it begs the question of how much variety in stories readers are going to receive from the traditional publishing industry.

As traditional publishing options become slimmer, the chance that every genre will become published through traditional means also becomes slimmer.

This is because various publishers specialize or focus on publishing certain genres for the industry. What happens to these genres once the traditional publishing houses shrink into a handful of options? Will we continue to see the variety we have already been given from traditional publishing?

It is fair to assume that as these changes take place, we are left with more questions than answers.

However, the way I see it, these acquisition choices have both helped and hurt ‘The Big 4' publishing houses.

‘The Big 4’ have helped themselves by giving themselves a larger marketing team and budget. Created a larger team of experts under their name to help their acquired books and authors. And, they continue to stay on top of the market, dominating the traditional side of the industry.

But because every choice does have its consequences, these choices have also hurt them.

By choosing to acquire publishing houses and shrinking the options for book acquisitions, they are eliminating the specialization that specific publishing houses offer particular genres and their supporting authors. They are also making an already subjective market more subjective. And in addition to this, narrowing the reader's variety of literacy.

If one thing is for sure, the publishing world, the stories available to readers, and how they get their books have been changing for quite a while.

With huge shifts in the traditional publishing world such as these, the industry moving forward could look drastically different for both authors and readers.

Another question that now presents itself is, how will this affect the self-publishing industry?

Slowly but surely, the self-publishing side of the industry has begun to gain traction.

Once the traditional side of the publishing world changes, will we see more authors jumping aboard the self-publishing train? In addition to this, will readers begin to take the self-publishing side more seriously if they can gain more variety from its publishing compared to the traditional side?

Now more than ever the publishing industry is on a scale that is balancing back and forth the more changes that come down the pike.

For a history of ‘The Big 5’ publishers, here is a link to Publisher’s Weekly’s article, Over the Past 25 Years, the Big Publishers Got Bigger — and Fewer.