Thoughts on Random Penguin From the UK

Some thoughts from the UK on the Penguin-Random House merger:

- Random House Penguin can also be abbreviated to “Ruin” (credit to Ben Evans, a media and telecomm analyst from Enders Analysis for that one)
- MacMillan + Hachette = Mache[t]te (credit to Waterstones UK for that one)
- Harper Collins + Simon & Schuster = Harsch (my creation)

Here in the UK, the combined company of Random House + Penguin, would have 25% market share, according to The BookSeller, and overtake Hachette, the current No. 1.

This might not just be a defensive move vis a vis Amazon, but also vis a vis agent/author demands for 50% ebook royalties and publishers’ desires to keep them at 25%

Also, some food for thought regarding the market capitalization of the new “mega” publisher and other firms in the space:

- Apple: $560 billion
- Google: $224 billion
- Amazon: $106 billion
- Random Penguin: ~$3 billion

About Andrew Rhomberg

Andrew is the founder of Jellybooks, a start-up focused on exploring, sampling and sharing ebooks. He previously worked at txtr (whitelabel ebook retail platform), Skype (internet telephony), Reciva (internet radio), gate5 (now Nokia Maps), and Shell (oil). He holds a science Ph.D. from MIT. Follow him on Twitter at @arhomberg.

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