How do you get your manga? Chances are that your answer would be something like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Right Stuf. But before those retailers can stock all those volumes on their bookshelves or send them off, they have to order manga themselves. There’s a lot of logistics in turning a translated, lettered, and edited file into something ready for consumers. For physical books, most manga publishers don’t handle all the logistics of current or future orders; they leave that up to a third party.
Those distributors will likely be familiar to you, having title pages of other books you’ve read or maybe an invoice you’ve received from an order. They’re names like Diamond, Macmillan, and Hachette. And if you noticed I left out two big names, we’ll, that’s because they’re about to take center stage today.
Up for Sale
Chances are you recognize many of ViacomCBS’ subsidies, like CBS, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, and Paramount. But these are all film- and TV-related brands; you may not know that they also deal with books. Simon & Schuster, made up of several imprints, is one of the largest publishers in the United States, ranking about #3 out of the so-called “Big 5” brands. Penguin Random House and HarperCollins publish more books than Simon & Schuster, and Hachette Book Group and Macmillan round out the list.
Simon & Schuster has been home to authors like Stephen King, R. L. Stein, and Mary Higgins Clark. But in March of this year, ViacomCBS’ CEO announced they were going to put Simon & Schuster up for sale because it didn’t fit with the rest of the conglomerate’s video-based assets. This generated a lot of interest from other publishers and outside groups.
ViacomCBS hoped for a purchase price of at least $1.2 billion, and early estimates pegged the deal at about $1.5 billion. As official bids poured in, The New York Times reported in November that at least one offer “topped $1.7 billion, far above the minimum ViacomCBS had set”.
On November 25th, ViacomCBS revealed it had reached a deal. The winner of the auction was Penguin Random House for $2.175 billion. Simon & Schuster will operate independently under Penguin Random House, just as it operates rather independently from its German conglomerate owners.
The Manga Industry and Its Distributors
So why is this of interest to manga readers? Well, just about a week before this announcement, manga publisher Seven Seas inked a deal with Penguin Random House to have them take over distribution for Seven Seas and its imprints from Macmillan and Diamond Book Group.
You know who else uses Penguin Random House as their distributor? Kodansha. And Square Enix. And Dark Horse.
Meanwhile, Simon & Schuster may only work with one manga publisher, but it’s a biggie — VIZ Media.
So, yeah. Out of the big names, Yen Press is the only one not going to be under Penguin Random House’s influence. Other small-to-mid-size manga/light novel publishers like TOKYOPOP and DENPA will also be using different distributors (Diamond and Consortium respectively), but that’s still a vast majority of the manga market.
Antitrust Concerns
Well, to be more specific, the book market in general. Take a look at this graph which represents the number of titles published by the first four of the Big 5.
And here is a list of companies Penguin Random House distributes books for:
Back in September, Publishers Weekly wrote Penguin Random House’s parent company Bertelsmann “had not been considered a likely buyer for S&S because of antitrust concerns”. The New York Times calls this potential merger “the first megapublisher”. The Economist described them it as “biblio-behemoth” and added this deal would mean about one-third of all English-language book sales would be under the Penguin Random House umbrella — and 70% of literary fiction.
Even Penguin Random House’s CEO told the Financial Times:
“We’ve been the most active player on the consolidation of the book publishing market in the last 10 years. We combined Penguin and Random House very successfully to create by far the largest book publisher in the world, actually the only global book publisher.”
So it’s no surprise that groups like the Authors Guild and American Booksellers Association are against the merger on the basis of lower wages, less variety, layoffs and fewer hires, and general charges of being a monopoly.
A book critic for The Washington Post, in his bluntly named article “Penguin Random House is buying Simon & Schuster. That’s bad for readers.” wrote, “the Big Five publishers will become the Big Four — or, really, an industry version of the Big Bad Wolf and the Three Little Pigs”.
Bertelsmann denies such accusations, saying that the deal would be less than 20% of the book market versus about 33% like some analyses say.
A Changing Market
Of course, Amazon’s name always emerges when it comes to discussions about monopolies or the book market. A bigger publisher could challenge Amazon’s pricing demands on books. And as a writer for The Atlantic pointed out, “If it’s correct to worry about a merged company that publishes perhaps 33 percent of new books, then surely it’s correct to worry more about the fact that Amazon now sells 49 percent of them.”
While a lot of worries are from the publisher side of the business that has little to do with the manga market, a Penguin Random House with Simon & Schuster could have major ripple effects.
Manga translator Caleb Cook succinctly put his feelings about this sale into two words: “obviously yikes”, and he followed it up with a Twitter thread.
Book distributors help persuade wholesalers and book outlets to stock their titles. Just think of how much influence a bigger Penguin Random House could have when they have access to Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Berserk, and Hi Score Girl all at their fingertips, ready to ship out. And the larger any company, the more they can demand — like a larger fee from the manga publishers in exchange for access to its services, or more money from Amazon to stock their books. Which, of course, could lead to higher prices. Or the publishers could sacrifice some series or volumes with low print counts in order to boost the big names, which are seen as a more reliable payoff as they try to market their titles to wholesalers.
The more likely effect is the difficulty for the smaller publishers to keep carving out spaces on physical and digital shelves. I mean, just think of your own shopping history. Have you ever passed on something because you would have had to pay for shipping, so you instead found an alternative at a place you had to buy from anyway? Or you decided to trust a salesperson based on your rapport with them instead of looking around for options? Same principle applies.
The fact that Penguin Random House calls themselves “the most active player on the consolidation of the book publishing market” should also be concerning. The publishing field was the Big 6 just a few years ago, and we could be down to the Big Four. What’s next — the Big Three? Or even, as this article suggests, the Big One?
Even if Penguin Random House doesn’t intend on buying any more of its rivals soon, they may still want to ink more distribution deals. In the manga market, for instance, Penguin Random House could essentially corner the market where it doesn’t matter whether VIZ Media or Kodansha Comics dominate the monthly bestsellers list — Penguin Random House gets to reap the benefits of a successful job done regardless.
Deal Scrutiny
Of course, there’s a chance the US Department of Justice or individual states could sue to stop the sale, citing antitrust concerns. Under the Trump administration, antitrust lawsuits fell sharply. With President-elect Biden coming in and expected to take an even harsher stance on monopolies than his predecessor or even President Obama, the purchase could be subject to restrictions or even being blocked. If that were to happen, Penguin Random House’s parent company has already agreed to pay ViacomCBS a termination fee; the amount is unknown.
Either way, the sale is not expected to be completed until some time in 2021, so any changes won’t be felt in the manga market or the book industry for a while. The Seven Seas deal, however, may be more noticeable in the meantime. Target’s website, for instance, has pretty much been limited to Seven Seas titles even though it stocked manga from all the major publishers about a year ago. Now that they’re going to be distributed by Penguin Random House, could Target.com end up with essentially no manga? That would be very disappointing, especially since manga and graphic novels have been experiencing strong growth.