{"id":2069,"date":"2008-05-20T21:38:43","date_gmt":"2008-05-21T01:38:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=2069"},"modified":"2008-05-20T21:38:43","modified_gmt":"2008-05-21T01:38:43","slug":"random-houses-salute-to-fireworks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/random-houses-salute-to-fireworks","title":{"rendered":"Random House’s Salute To Fireworks"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve goofed on my history of (incredibly) small press publishing for years. While there are plenty of specific reasons why I<\/em> was a failure, there are also some pretty enormous structural problems with the business of book publishing. I think most of those problems can be traced back to bookstore returnability, but it’s a complex argument that I don’t feel like making right now.<\/p>\n

What brings me to this topic is the news that Bertelsmann, a privately held German media conglomerate, looks ready to announce a new president for Random House, one of the largest publishing companies in the world. Perturbed that Random hasn’t had any blockbuster hits in the last year and revenues have slipped, ownership (and new CEO Hartmut Ostrowski) decided to promote from within. Of course, when you’re a major conglomerate like Bertelsmann, “within” can be a pretty broad term.<\/p>\n

In this case, Random House’s new president, Markus Dohle, comes from Bertelsmann’s Arvato Print unit. What’s Arvato? Why, I’ll let the WSJ explain<\/a>:<\/p>\n

While Arvato is so unglamorous a business it was once referred to inside Bertelsmann as “Siberia,” it has served as a major growth engine for Bertelsmann in recent years. Arvato has been plunging into far-ranging businesses such as repairing mobile telephones, storing pharmaceuticals and running call centers and billing systems. Last year it booked almost [$7.8 billion] in revenue, or about a quarter of Bertelsmann’s turnover.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m sure Mr. Dohle’s a fine executive, and I’m sure Mr. Ostrowski (another Arvato Print alumni) has some big ideas for how Bertelsmann can make book publishing a major contributor to its bottom line (it’s currently at 10% of company revenues), but this sort of pedigree sounds a lot like the appointment of Jack Donaghy<\/a> to the role of Vice President of East Coast Television and Microwave Oven Programming.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve goofed on my history of (incredibly) small press publishing for years. While there are plenty of specific reasons why I was a failure, there are also some pretty enormous structural problems with the business of book publishing. I think most of those problems can be traced back to bookstore returnability, but it’s a complex … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Random House’s Salute To Fireworks”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27,4],"tags":[162,161],"class_list":["post-2069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-business","category-literature","tag-bertlesmann","tag-random-house"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-xn","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3018,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/publishing-still-doomed","url_meta":{"origin":2069,"position":0},"title":"Publishing: Still Doomed","author":"Gil","date":"December 4, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm still a bit under the weather, so I won't offer much commentary on these posts about book publishing. There was a big shakeout yesterday at Random House and layoffs at Simon & Schuster. Along with last month's announcement that Houghton Mifflin Harcourt was \"freezing\" acqusitions -- leading to the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6701,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/podcast-hassling-the-hoff","url_meta":{"origin":2069,"position":1},"title":"Podcast: Hassling The Hoff","author":"Gil","date":"December 9, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Virtual Memories \u2013 season 2 episode 15 Scott Hoffman - Hassling The Hoff \"When people talk about the death of books, they couldn't be more wrong. Physical books may exist the way vinyl records do, for collectors or fanatics, but people read more today than they have at any time\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":17036,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-604-benjamin-dreyer","url_meta":{"origin":2069,"position":2},"title":"Episode 604 – Benjamin Dreyer","author":"Gil","date":"September 10, 2024","format":"audio","excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show 604: Benjamin Dreyer \"When I started the book, what I was doing was trying to replicate everything that I've ever read in somebody else's style manual into my own voice. I realized a) 'No, you don't,' and b) 'What is your voice anyway?'\" Benjamin Dreyer joins the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/dreyercomp.jpg?fit=1200%2C554&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/dreyercomp.jpg?fit=1200%2C554&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/dreyercomp.jpg?fit=1200%2C554&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/dreyercomp.jpg?fit=1200%2C554&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/dreyercomp.jpg?fit=1200%2C554&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1338,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/quitters-never-win","url_meta":{"origin":2069,"position":3},"title":"Quitters Never Win","author":"Gil","date":"February 7, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Last week, I received the dissolution papers for my old publishing company. I waited quite a while before filing to dissolve it. While some of you might suspect it was because I harbored a romantic desire to get back into publishing, it was actually because I was scared that I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0375725784","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2497,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/its-the-f-backstop","url_meta":{"origin":2069,"position":4},"title":"It’s the F*** Backstop!","author":"Gil","date":"September 19, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I suppose that when I ran a link to the NYMag article on \"the death of book publishing,\" I should've made it part of my F*** You, You Whining F*** series. I failed you, dear readers. Fortunately, Kassia Kroszer is out there as my F*** You Backstop with a good\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":977,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/scan-and-pan","url_meta":{"origin":2069,"position":5},"title":"Scan and Pan","author":"Gil","date":"June 2, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Continuing that series of posts and links about contemporary fiction, here's a piece in Slate about how book sales are measured and ignored: [Using Bookscan to garner sales numbers] has become popular for a few reasons having to do with the culture of journalism and publishing. In general, the publishing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "literature"","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2069\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}