A View From Corona #12

July 26th 2003 at 12:52 pm

Time for some semi-random free association observations about the industry that I love to hate to love – Books and Publishing. The industry as a whole dodged a MAJOR bullet recently when debt-ridden mega-media-corp AOL-Time Warner decided to NOT sell off their publishing division. There are currently 6 major publishing houses that publish the majority of books sold in this country, and it was looking like this Big 6 might become the Big 5. The Other corporate media giants in the publishing world were leery of paying the $400 million asking price, because of fears that top tier authors and editors (and top tier distribution clients like DC comics) would leave the Time-Warner Publishing ship like rats leaving a sinking ship.