Last week, we collectively learned that Bertelsmann, the German-based parent corporation of Penguin Random House (PRH), would be bidding to acquire Simon & Schuster (S&S), which its parent corporation ViacomCBS called “not a core asset” (source; source). The deal is expected to go through in 2021.

Smarter people with hotter takes than I have already written about what this means for the publishing industry at large, so I want to use this week’s blog post to talk about what it might mean for those of you who are dreaming of a book deal. (You know who you are: the people who write the books that the industry acquires in hopes of making themselves a lot of money.)

High-Sodium Warning:

If that parenthetical statement was any indication, be warned that this will likely be a salty post indeed. Also, please know that it’s salty toward big corporations, consolidation, and monopoly/oligarchy, and is not intended to be salty toward the people who work in the trenches of trade publishing.

Let’s dive in.

Wait, What’s Happening? Some Background First. 

If this is the first you’re hearing of it, we’re going from the Big Five to the Big Four.

Consolidation has been the name of the game in New York publishing for some time now, starting in the early to mid-twentieth century, which is how the Big Five are made up of so many smaller imprints (e.g., St. Martin’s Press, Tor, and Flatiron at Macmillan). This particular merger, if it goes through, will come eight years after we went to the Big Five from the Big Six. For those keeping score, the five major New York-based trade publishers are currently:

1. Hachette Book Group

2. HarperCollins

3. Macmillan

4. Penguin Random House

5. Simon & Schuster

These publishers are all held by even bigger mega-corporations. For instance, NewsCorp owns HarperCollins. As of October 2020, Penguin Random House had about 25% of the publishing market share and S&S had a little over 9% (source). Once they merge, Bertelsmann will have about 34% of the market share, which is certainly going to dredge up antitrust concerns in Washington.

Now. How Might This Merger Impact As-Yet Unpublished Writers?

Let’s go with the worst-case scenario first.

Worst-case? From a practical standpoint, there will be less money and resources to go around in New York publishing.

Typically when two big companies merge, the acquiring company doesn’t mean want to keep all of the liabilities of two companies, meaning that mergers and acquisitions often lead to redundancies, competing departments, and staffing cuts. As this Forbes article indicates, that may not be the case in writer-facing and imprint-specific departments like editorial, publicity, and marketing, but the backend offices like legal and accounting, not to mention wage workers like those in the mail room, may be out of work.

Over time, it would be my guess that fewer resources will mean fewer imprints and editors for agents to pitch. This will mean either fewer books overall or smaller advances—though I imagine that somehow these imprints will dig deep and find the coffers to give more celebrity tell-alls more six- and seven-figure advances all the time.

…essentially, I think the new publishing landscape is going to be more of the same, but on steroids.

What do I mean by this?

For several years now, it has been maddeningly difficult to get a fiction book published in the trade space. I’m sure there’s a handful of nonfiction writers shaking their fists at me right now, but the truth is that trade publishers see adult nonfiction titles more often than adult fiction titles as having the ability to recoup their investment. More of the American public buys nonfiction titles, if only to have the latest Trump administration tell-all on their coffee table. For most agents or publishers to invest time and money into a debut novel, on the other hand, said novel needs to have a fresh idea with some commercial or critical potential, and the writer needs to have a solid platform in place (e.g., social media following).

With only four major houses, even if S&S gets to keep its leadership, this sort of proving ground could get tougher and tougher to break through.

As The Atlantic points out, the industry is going to look more and more like Hollywood, with more sequels, less risks on new talent. This was already hinted at by the book-to-film pipeline and cottage industries that have grown up around it, not to mention having film agents in-house at agencies. A recent example of how this impacts writers is the fact J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy has been determined the singular and only take on Appalachian narrative for, oh, say, the next ten years, while others writing about Appalachia that come after him, even if they lend a different perspective to the subject matter, will likely be given midlist budgets at best.

A [Slightly] Rosier Counterpoint.

Okay, I feel I owe it to you to offer a perspective that’s a little less doom and gloom. As I mentioned above, it’s not like a similar merger hasn’t happened in recent years. When PRH merged in 2013, despite the anticipation of what competing imprints would mean, many Penguin imprints were preserved, and this just meant infighting for the same book (source).

However, I wouldn’t think too rosily about all this. (Sorry, I did it for as long as I could!) One author back in 2012 thought that this would mean PRH taking on more risks and experimenting on behalf of authors, not shareholders. As Bertelsmann is publicly owned and traded, and given how little innovation we’ve seen in the digital book space (besides novelties like animated ebooks), I have to admit this may be too rosy a view for me.

How Do I Prepare for This as an Aspiring Author? Can I Prepare for This?

Absolutely you can prepare for this. The main way of doing so is to alter your submission strategy as you see fit. 

The Trade-Publishing-or-Bust Strategy.

With fewer major publishers to sell to, agents are likely to get pickier with their slush piles. Never has it been more important to have a fresh concept for your manuscript, one that is still commercially or critically viable. Never has it been more important to have the strongest author platform possible.

Tl;dr: If you’re a virtual unknown hoping to sell a debut novel, you better be a frickin’ Triple Threat.

The Hybrid Strategy.

You could also start considering submitting your work, unagented, to small presses.

More risks are being taken at small presses on manuscripts that need work, yes, but more so on manuscripts that are experimental in some way. And while smaller presses’ budgets are lower, let’s be real, you’re likely to get more hands-on attention than at the big guys.

If you’re not ready to give up hope on your trade book deal, consider a hybrid querying approach: you can still query agents while getting more familiar with the small press space.

Off the top of my head, here are some small presses to consider while you’re finding your footing. More can be found on Entropy Mag’s “Where to Submit” roundups:

• Barrelhouse

• Burrow Press

• Graywolf

• Melville House

• Red Hen Press

• Sibling Rivalry Press

• Split/Lip

• Tin House

• Tyrant Books

• Triangle House

• Verso

(Re-)consider Self-Publishing.

Self-publishing is no longer the punishment or the consolation prize you may have previously considered it.

In fact, per this article that appeared on Melville House’s site in 2013, when PRH first merged, now might be the best time to self-publish, given how all of this consolidation is allegedly to protect trade publishing against the advances of Amazon over the industry’s market share. 

Self-publication requires more work and a greater start-up cost than a trade book deal for sure, but it can help you carve out a not-insignificant author platform. I have had at least two clients start out as indie authors and then grow their platform to the level that agents and publishers took notice. One has a two-book deal with a Big Five—erm, soon to be Big Four—publisher, and the other has a deal for all future books to be with a small press in her niche.

What I always suggest to my clients is that you determine at the outset whether you want to self-publish after a certain number of agent rejections, or whether you’ll wait it out for a certain number of books to get the axe from agents. Take the reins yourself, build a plan that’s right for you, and you won’t be disappointed. 

To Sum Up

Right now, all we know for sure is that Bertelsmann is hoping to purchasing Simon & Schuster in the new year. We don’t know for sure whether this will be good or bad for aspiring trade-published authors, but we can prepare for whatever’s coming by putting forth the best manuscript possible, building a solid author platform, and exploring all of our options.

For a lot of you, the state of trade publishing is nothing new, but if your head is whirling in light of all this information, hopefully the following statement will give you some comfort:

How this impacts you and your writing career is entirely up to you.

Decide what your goals are for your manuscript. Does your book absolutely have to be trade published? If so, then you need to find your strategies to make that happen (e.g., improve your writing, network when and where possible post-pandemic, build your author platform). If you want to take a hybrid approach, where do you draw the fine line between your options?

To help you make these decisions, I’ve uploaded the worksheet from Week 4 of my recorded master class on drafting, editing, and publishing your manuscript. Click the button below to download it for free. Week 4 has to do with publication options, and this worksheet gives you considerations to make for either the trade or self-publishing route.