About the Publishing and Printing Industry
The publishing industry consists mainly of books, magazine and newspapers. During the period 2007-2009 the publishing industry displayed a lot of resilience in the face of the global economic crisis. This resilience has been suggested to be down to consumers looking for cheaper forms of entertainment during financially tough months. Despite this, as the crisis deepened over successive months, the global publishing industry began to buckle under the pressure. Consumers reduced discretiona
ry income has started to hurt the industry, with a decline in new publications and dwindling book sales.
The late 2000s recession saw the growing popularity of e-books take hold, with increased penetration witnessed during the downturn. Factors which have helped growth in this sector include their cheapness in terms of distribution and production, which in turn has increased the erosion of the margins in the publishing industry. Despite this, the global publishing industry is expected to hit a total value of US$322.7 billion by the year 2015.
Another trend said to be down to the global recession is the decreasing popularity of celebrity autobiographies and memoirs. This sector of the market has seen a steady decline in sales and readership. Other declining sectors of the book publishing industry include books on fitness, food and drink, maps, and body and spirit. The sector which is currently gaining the most popularity is books designed to cover the current social and political issues.
Global Printing Industry
In 2010, the global commercial printing market hit a total value of US$402.1 billion. This value represents a compound annual growth rate of 1.2% between 2006 and 2010. In terms of the most valuable sector in this industry, general commercial printing saw the highest volume of sales and accounted for 47% of the whole market value, with a total value of US$189 billion. In the coming years the market is expected to grow at a CAGR of around 1.9% during the period 2010-2015. This suggested CAGR growth will see the market for global commercial printing hit a value of US$440.9 billion by the end of 2015.
Leading Global Publishers
The biggest publishers in are: Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Group, Random House and Simon & Schuster.
Hachette Book Group
The division of Hachette Livre is home to book publisher Little, Brown and hardcover, mass market, and trade paperback publisher Grand Central Publishing (formerly Warner Books). Other imprints include FaithWords (religious books) and Center Street (for readers in America's heartland). The current iteration of the company was formed in 2006 when French media firm Lagardère acquired Time Warner Book Group from Time Warner's Time Inc. unit. Time Warner Book Group subsequently became Hachette Book Group.
HarperCollins
The book-publishing subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., HarperCollins is the publisher of best-sellers including Coraline by Neil Gaiman, SuperFreakanomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, and Scott Adams' "Dilbert" books. The company's publishing groups include HarperCollins General Books, HarperCollins Children's Book Group, and HarperCollins UK. It also has international operations in Canada, Australia/New Zealand, and India. Its Zondervan unit publishes Bibles and Christian books.
Macmillan
The UK-based unit of German publisher Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck is an international publisher of books and journals, operating in some 80 countries. Macmillan Publishers has units and imprints devoted to academic and scholarly books and business and training materials, as well as fiction and non-fiction publishing. The company also offers production, fulfillment, and distribution services through its Macmillan Publishing Solutions business.
Penguin Group
Owned by media giant Pearson, Penguin Group operates through such imprints as Viking (literary fiction and non-fiction), Puffin (children's books), Dorling Kindersley (reference works), and Rough Guides (travel). Pioneer of the paperback, Penguin was founded in 1935 by Allen Lane, who wanted to offer novels for the price of a pack of cigarettes and published such contemporary writers as Ernest Hemingway and Agatha Christie.
Random House
Random House Group publishes a variety of books for the UK audience, including fiction, non-fiction, and children's titles. It also publishes e-books and audio books. Random House Group is comprised of five publishing companies: Cornerstone Publishing, CCV, Ebury Publishing, Random House Children's Books, and Transworld Publishers. The Group is based in London and has subsidiaries in Australia, New Zealand, and India, as well as a joint venture in South Africa (Random House Struik). It is a unit of media giant Bertelsmann's Random House.
Simon & Schuster
The publishing arm of CBS, Simon & Schuster prints the work of these and other popular authors of consumer fiction and nonfiction books under imprints such as Pocket Books, The Free Press, and Scribner. It publishes audio books and e-books compatible with devices such as Amazon's Kindle and Apple's iPad, and operates Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing. Simon & Schuster was founded in 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster.
