Far from Dead: The 10 Largest Book Publishers in...
If you’re under the impression that reading is a dying art, think again. The top publishing companies in the world prove that reading is still a booming business by pulling in hundreds of millions of dollars every year, regularly topping what they made the year before.
It’s no coincidence either, with film franchises like Harry Potter and The Hunger Games popularizing their novel counterparts, big publishing companies have really cemented their relationship with mainstream audiences. It’s kind of funny to think that movies can help expose people to reading, isn’t it? Well it’s true, and some of the biggest publishers in the world have been able to benefit from this interesting relationship in spades.
But movies aren’t the only reason that publishing companies are thriving these days. Sometimes a book alone can be so amazing that a company can pull in thousands of new readers, seemingly overnight.
But you might be surprised to learn that it’s not only the fiction/nonfiction publishers that are raking in the dough. Some of these companies make a killing by creating published work for business professionals, medical experts, scientists, and educators across the globe. Let’s go ahead and take a look at what’s so special about these companies.
Pearson
Pearson is far and away the leader when it comes to publishing on a global scale. Their motto is to “help people make more of their lives through learning.” They achieve this by creating learning based products, and they have several online learning tools to show for it. Schools and colleges use their products all across the United States, solidifying their first place listing here.
Reed Elsevier
Based in the United Kingdom, Netherlands, and the United States, Reed Elsevier has four main divisions: science, medical, legal, and business. Most publishing companies have nothing on Reed Elsevier’s database for science and medical research. They’re the lead providers for those subjects, and aim to help practitioners across the globe in the acquisition and application of the knowledge they seek.
Thomson Reuters
Thomson Reuters focuses on business and professionals rather than education or fiction/nonfiction. They even split their divisions similarly, with devoted to the following: finance and risk, legal, tax and accounting, and intellectual property and science. Thomson Reuters is founded on the principles of independence, integrity, and freedom from bias. This no doubt led to them getting a perfect score on the Corporate Equality Index, rated by the Human Rights Campaign itself.
Penguin Random House
After the merger between two of the biggest book publishers in the world, Random House and Penguin, Penguin Random House becomes the world’s largest publisher, ahead of book publishers— Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan and Simon & Schuster in size. With only five major publishers left, the book industry will get much more traction against distributors, such as Amazon, traditional bookstores and ebook retailers (Kindle Store, Nook Book Store, Apple’s iBooks Store).
Wolters Kluwer
Wolters Kluwer stands out on this list because it focuses solely on professional genres, as opposed to educational or fiction/nonfiction ones. More specifically, they focus on four categories: tax and accounting, legal and regulatory, financial and compliance services, and health. Their content is aimed at helping professionals in those fields by providing actionable advice written by experts. With a huge revenue, 19,000 employees worldwide, and operations in over 40 countries, Wolters Kluwer certainly earns its place as the fourth biggest publishing company in the world.
Hachette
Based in France, Hachette Livre is among the most diverse publishers out there. In French, Spanish, and English markets they publish for nearly all genres. They’ve got a wide array of authors under their belt, such as: Tina Fey, Stephanie Meyer, Jon Stewart, Tom Wolfe, Malcolm Gladwell, and many more. Its diversity is nothing short of amazing, and it certainly pays off, with the company recording impressive revenue every year.
Grupo Planeta
Calling Grupo Planeta a publishing company wouldn’t do it justice; it’s really more of a “communication” company. Not only are they the leading publishers in Spanish and Latin markets, they also dabble in newspaper (La Razon), television (Grupo Antena 3), and radio stations (Europa FM). They’ve also published bestselling author Dan Brown’s book “Inferno” for Spanish reading audiences.
McGraw-Hill
McGraw-Hill is an “education comes first” publishing company. They’re all about connecting those in the educational field with high quality products that aid in learning. To do this, they have two main divisions: one for college level students and one for elementary thru high-school level students. Two of their core-values are diversity and inclusion, which they make clear by employing over 6,000 people worldwide, no doubt a crucial element in their earning.
Holtzbrinck
Holtzbrinck is a German-based publishing group that sells in over 138 countries. The majority of their income comes from their three “Macmillan” publishing divisions, which cover “education”, “learning” and the more general “publishers division”—basically fiction and nonfiction. They make about 14% of their income off of business information and newspaper projects, according to their home website.
Scholastic Corp
Scholastic is the publisher of classic series like Animorphs and Goosebumps. More recently, they’ve had great success with the popular Hunger Games and Harry Potter series as well. They lead the way when it comes to publishing and distributing children’s books, even offering a mail-order service in schools, which makes it easy for young readers to order. Some of its revenue was given away in awards and scholarships during their yearly “Scholastic Art and Writing Awards.” This gives thousands of students the opportunity to practice their skills and earn some money for winning, and fosters the same love of reading that supplies the company’s revenue.
Words & Expressions
counterpart：副本，配对物
cement：巩固，加强
controversial：有争议的
far and away：无疑地，显然地