How much time should writers spend – well – writing? Or, put another way, how much time should writers spend on other tasks, like social media? In my old position as an academic, I spent a lot of time analyzing online engagement. So, I thought I’d turn my hand to analyzing 12 bestselling authors’ uses of social media.
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Why the Big Five Publishers are a Big Deal
Recently, I was in Germany, and decided to browse Project Gutenberg. A site named after one of the most important publishers in history.
For those who don’t know, Project Gutenberg is a wonderful repository of books in the public domain. The site takes its name from the famed German inventor, printer, and publisher. Johannes Gutenberg introduced printing, and more important still, movable type, to Europe. This kickstarted the printing revolution of the 1400s. His innovations enabled mass production, laying the groundwork for a knowledge-based economy. Learning spread to the masses, democratizing education.
It thus seems appropriate to name a website devoted to taking advantage of new technology to spread knowledge after this influential German publisher.
But when I tried browsing the site in Germany, I did not see the familiar sepia tones of the Project Gutenberg home page. Instead, I saw big red letters. ‘Your IP Address in Germany is Blocked’.
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How Many Publishers Are There, Really?
Most English-language books are published by one of just five publishers.
‘Ha!’ I hear you say – ‘I can name more publishers than that!’
If you’re a book lover, chances are you’re familiar with some of the major names and even logos of publishers. And you’d be right to think that there are far more publishing houses than just five.
But the fact is, the vast majority of these ‘publishers’ are actually just ‘imprints’ of larger publishers. They’ve been bought or merged into the ‘Big Five’. (Until Penguin and Random House merged, it used to be the ‘Big Six’.) How long will it be before there’s the ‘Big Four’? The ‘Big Three’? The ‘Big Two’, or even just the ‘Big One’?
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