Top Ten U.S. Trade Publishers

Lots going on. I leave for Bethesda on Monday, a trip that's complicated by the fact that I'm worried about my geriatric cat, Tribble. I've been on death watch for some time now and didn't want to leave her with friends while I'm gone. Knowing Tribble, she'd choose that time to check out, and I wouldn't want anyone else finding her tiny cold corpse. The two younger cats will go to camp (a cats-only retreat), but Tribble is a problem. My vet, who does NOT do boarding, agreed to keep Tribble for me as a favor.

Meanwhile, tonight is the night I go for my sleep study (see my post here for an explanation). I'm supposed to present myself at the emergency room of a Dallas hospital at 8 PM, where I'll be led to a room and hooked up to machines so that I can relax and sleep on command. Yeah, right.

In the meantime, Michael Hyatt, the CEO of Thomas Nelson, had an interesting post (thanks to Nathan Bransford's blog for pointing me there) about the top ten U.S. trade publishers by market share.

Here's what Hyatt's folk say (I've added the corporations that own the houses in parentheses):

Random House (Bertelsmann AG) 18%
HarperCollins (News Corporation) 12.4%
Simon & Schuster (CBS) 9%
Penguin (Pearson PLC) 8.5%
Hachette* 6%
Thomas Nelson (Intermedia Partners) 4.8%
Holtzbrinck** 4.6%
Tyndale House 2.1%
John Wiley 1.7%
Scholastic 1.5%

*Hachette Livre is the largest publisher in France and the fifth largest worldwide according to Wikipedia
**Holtzbrinck is the media giant that owns Macmillan, St. Martin's Press, Pan, Tor and Forge

"Trade publisher" usually refers to a house producing books intended for general readership, nonacademic books mostly found in bookstores. Of the list above, Thomas Nelson and Tyndale House are primarily Christian publishers. Scholastic is the largest children's book publisher.

I was a little surprised to see John Wiley on the list since I think of them as a scientific and technical publisher. However, they do have a trade division.

According to Hyatt, these top ten publishers represent 67.2% of the total U.S. trade market. Remember, however, that this list of "trade publishers" does not include the textbook market, which is a HUGE piece of the publishing pie.

You can see Hyatt's post on his website here.

I'm off to run all the errands I need to get done before I leave town. Have a good day.