Will the big 5 publishers become 4?

[Pamela Jo]

The Antitrust Showdown to Determine Simon & Schuster’s Fate Is About to Begin

Jonathan Karp is rallying the troops at S&S as its suitor, Penguin Random House, heads to trial Monday against Biden’s Justice Department. The witness list is a who’s who of publishing bosses, power agents, and authors—including Stephen King—with a $2 billion deal on the line.

www.vanityfair.com

 

[AgentPete]

It's already been OK'd in the UK. From author/agent p.o.v, it's bad news.

 

[Pamela Jo]

It's already been OK'd in the UK. From author/agent p.o.v, it's bad news.

I have to give the Biden admin points for fighting it. Capitalism is supposed to be about lots of shopkeeper-small businesses. Not corporations smothering competition.

 

[Jasmine]

All those major publishers should go away....no more agents or anyone trying to get a cut from successful writers.

 

[Pamela Jo]

This. Without competition there is no creativity in any field. Each decade of the last century can be identified by art, music, fashion, stories. Since the move for efficiency, ie monopolies, in the developed world, there is almost no way to differentiate the decades.

 

[Hannah F]

This. Without competition there is no creativity in any field. Each decade of the last century can be identified by art, music, fashion, stories. Since the move for efficiency, ie monopolies, in the developed world, there is almost no way to differentiate the decades.
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NFTs. They didn't exist before this decade. Ai-Da. And, even with monopolies, there will come a story-gem or two. Plus, there will always be a glut of self-published authors. Among them, some great stories.
If the waves come crashing, don't drown. Ride them.

 

[Pamela Jo]

I think the point is that while a few may be able to ride them-most will be lost under the waves. They should not be written off because a few succeed. Even in the most authoritarian system there are usually self-made successes. The powers to be even now point at a few winners to say, "Hey, it's not so bad." But it is. What advances have come have resulted in more control over any creative change which has made solutions to energy, food, housing sustainability stall dead in the water. There are incredibly innovative economists, engineers, physicists and agronomists out there whose ideas have been shelved, defunded, and ignored because monopolies see change as a danger. The plastics industry is investing in the creation of more plastics while recycling is the joke of their own devising. To go with the flow now is to become flotsam and jetsam on the tide of history.