Book Publishers Industry Profile

Companies in this industry produce, edit, market, and publish books in print, electronic, or audio format. The top global book publishers in the US are McGraw-Hill Education, Scholastic, John Wiley & Sons, and HarperCollins. The other leading publishers are Penguin Random House (UK and Germany), Hachette Livre (France), and Springer Nature (Germany).

Global books revenue from all channels is expected to reach about $129 billion by 2023, up from about $122 billion in 2018, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. Total books revenue is forecast to grow by about 1% per year over the next five years as print revenue declines more slowly, or even rises, in major markets.

The US book publishing industry consists of about 2,600 establishments (single-location companies and units of multi-location companies) with combined annual revenue of about $27 billion.

COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE

Demand for books is driven by demographics and is largely resistant to economic cycles. The profitability of individual companies depends on product development and marketing. Large publishers have an advantage in bidding for new manuscripts or authors. Small and midsized publishers can succeed if they focus on a specific subject or market. The US industry is highly concentrated: the top 50 companies generate about 80% of revenue.

Book publishers face competition for consumer leisure time from numerous other sources of media and entertainment, including magazine and newspaper publishing, internet content, video games, and TV and motion picture production. Courseware and related ...