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Publishing Biz/Self-Publishing

Last Penguin Standing

Posted by Scott Gregory on

Random House, Penguin, Alfred A. Knopf, Doubleday, Crown, Pantheon, Ballantine, Viking, Putnam, Dutton, and many other publishing houses are now only one publisher. This new behemoth is called Penguin Random-House. I guess Penguin House sounded too silly. Along with Random Penguins there are only 4 other big publishers; Hachette, Macmillan, HarperCollins, and Simon & Schuster. If you thought getting a publishing contract was impossible before then it is now double impossible. Self-publishing gets a bad rap because there is little if any quality control. But the marketplace is now the filter. Amazing books are published by independent authors. I know, I helped launch quite a few of them.

None of the big publishers were interested in The Elf On The Shelf and today it is practically synonymous with Christmas. They even had a giant balloon in the Macy’s parade this year.

How a Self-Published Book Became a Best-seller