# Penguin Books and Random House Merging



## Ankari (Nov 2, 2012)

I read the article today.  You can find it here..  Basically, two giant publishers are merging to create a gigantic publishing company.  

Two paragraphs caught my eye:



> For the media giants, *challenged by the rise of e-books and Amazon's aggressive discount pricing*, the merger would produce economies of scale as they combine operations, such as marketing and distribution.



And



> "The publishing imprints of the two companies will remain as they are today, competing for the very best authors and the very best books," Makinson's letter said. *"But our access to investment resources will also allow Penguin Random House to take risks with new authors,* to defend our creative and editorial independence, to publish the broadest range of books on the planet."



Finally, I'm a bit surprise to see that both companies were reporting profits of $238 million for Random house and $178 million for Penguin.  Proof that there is money still in publishing.


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## Devor (Nov 3, 2012)

Pfft, that's more about the state of the economy today than about ebooks.  A shortage of "investment resources" is what's holding back the recovery.  It wouldn't surprise me if the merger is undone or one of the companies is sold when things pick up.


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## Sparkie (Nov 3, 2012)

Devor said:


> It wouldn't surprise me if the merger is undone or one of the companies is sold when things pick up.



I doubt this makes it past the regulators.  Penguin has at least one legal issue on its plate already.


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## Leif Notae (Nov 4, 2012)

I know the EU is flipping out about it. Really, what this will do is push more people out to do it on their own. Granted, they were pushing it that direction anyway, but still... This would be another step.


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