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Forum - View topicNEWS: Publishers Random House, Penguin Consider Merger
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Sakurazuka_Reika
 Posts: 527 |
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Am I the only one who started to think about names for the hypothetical merged company... and found RandomPenguin to be a hilarious but awesome name?
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njprogfan
 Collector Extraordinaire Posts: 1220 Location: A River Named Toms |
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All I can think about if this goes through is the number of people let go and the lesser number of books published. Mergers for the most part are never a good thing.
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penguintruth
 Posts: 8501 Location: Penguinopolis |
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You can't just merge a word with "penguin". I mean, that's just--- Hm. Random Penguin it is, then. |
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 10018 Location: Virginia |
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There probably will not be any name change. Generally merged publishing companies keep the old names as "divisions". You will notice both Random House and Penguin are already owned by larger corporations.
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littlegreenwolf
 Posts: 4796 Location: Seattle, WA |
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Oh god no. This would be horrible for the book industry. I'm hoping it doesn't happen.
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 10018 Location: Virginia |
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@littlegreenwolf
The horror is already happening. This merger if it happens is a symptom and not a cause. The cause is that not enough people are buying real books these days. |
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littlegreenwolf
Posts: 4796 Location: Seattle, WA |
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Book sales in general are done, but that doesn't mean I have to be happy about a move that would merge the two largest publishers in the US, which in turn would probably cut down on jobs, as well as competition. It's not a solution, just people trying to make money out of a market that is having difficulties lately. |
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Genet
Posts: 261 Location: USA |
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Are they really that bad? How shameful. 
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littlegreenwolf
Posts: 4796 Location: Seattle, WA |
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There's always the possibility that they'll just let the publishers do their own thing, but when companies merge, especially with a competitor, jobs are lost and the market shrinks. |
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Genet
Posts: 261 Location: USA |
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Well, yeah. But are e-books really slaughtering the print book market that badly in the states? I mean, I knew people latched onto them, but holy crap. Or is it partially due to the fact that less people actually read books? |
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Catseyetiger
Posts: 779 |
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e-books have replaced the book market due to costs of printing a real book vs the costs of allowing you to buy the digital copy.
Sigh I love a good book though and will miss the print version very much here in the near future. its sad someone might think 3 billion was a lot of money and could support many jobs let alone two publishers. but who knew! |
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 10018 Location: Virginia |
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I don't have numbers, but I have noted that all the book stores in town except B&N and Books A Million have gone out of business and their stock is lower than I've ever seen. Even the used book store is having problems. Few customers and no new (used) books coming in.
Personally I'll buy an electronic book when I have no other option, however, that day is coming faster than I expected. |
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Genet
Posts: 261 Location: USA |
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I find that really depressing since books can last for so long if they're well taken care of- I have several from my grandparents and a few from my great-grandparents that're over 50-70 years old. My brother has some extremely old books that are over a century old.
I sincerely doubt the same can be said for e-books- I just don't have enough faith in the format to stop buying print books that I can read for the rest of my life, and buy e-books that may not be supported in a decade or less. It also bothers me that I would be paying close-to-print prices for something that I don't own and could disappear at any time. If they offered them in a universal format with no DRM, priced reasonably (IE- don't price it like a hardcover book), and no requirement for online connectivity to read, then I would consider buying an e-reader for when I'm out and about and want to read a novel or some such. (I'm of the opinion, though, that manga doesn't really look as nice on a screen as it does on paper, esp. with color pages, but that is totally my opinion) I like the idea of being able to take a library on the go, and being able to do things like adjust text size, but at home, I have a -lot- of books and I have no interest reading on a device if I have the copies right in front of me. For me, it's not worth the money right now. The whole system needs to be fixed before I'll seriously consider it. |
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 10018 Location: Virginia |
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I have several books dating back to the 1860's. They are mostly in better condition than some from the 1950's (better paper). They will be readable as long as people continue to use the written word.
Current e-books will mostly be lost with the next technology change. |
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Genet
Posts: 261 Location: USA |
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I also don't understand people who believe that print will completely die out with e-books. I think e-books will be the new standard for reading, like how MP3's are the standard for music, but they won't completely kill printed books, which I think will exist as a luxury market in the future, at the very least. I also (hope) think that print-on-demand will become a more popular option as offset printing becomes less realistic- I hope that the manga industry adopts it. I also find it extremely interesting how Japan hasn't latched onto ebooks like the US has. I'm not really worried about printed manga being phased out over there anytime within the next 5-10 years because the market is so massive and ingrained. I definitely worry about buying printed manga in English, though, except from some publishers like Vertical, Fantagraphics, etc, who do extremely high-quality print releases, because I think the market will always be there, but some of the other companies? I'm not so sure. I just hope they move toward print-on-demand instead of completely shuttering print divisions. |
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