Are small publishers doing all the hard work for the big ones?

These days, it is minimally staffed and funded firms who invest in new authors. The giants avoid such risk, only picking the writers once their names are madePaul McVeigh and Kirsty Logan are authors you may have heard of. Both of their debuts were published by Salt, an independent publisher. Paul McVeigh’s The Good Son was shortlisted for a bunch of awards, and won the Polari first book prize this year. Kirsty Logan’s The Rental Heart and Other Fairytales won three awards — including the Polari in 2015— and Logan had her next book published with Harvill Secker, a division of Penguin Random House. The same trajectory is likely for Paul McVeigh. It’s a familiar story.Independent publishers have existed since the 19th century; it wasn’t until the 20th and the 21st that we saw the industry dominated by a few corporations. “The Big Four” publishers – Simon & Schuster, Penguin Random House, Hachette and HarperCollins – have grown big by buying up small publishers. Hogarth, for example, was founded by Leonard and Virginia Woolf in 1917; now it is an imprint at the Crown Publishing Group, which is in turn a part of Penguin Random House – which itself used to be Penguin and Random House before their merger in 2013. Phew. Related: 'Crazy but fantastic': Man Booker prize pitches tiny publishers into big league Related: A northern powerhouse really is coming – in publishing Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'

[ The Guardian | 2016-12-08 00:00:00 UTC ]

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[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Catherine Cookson estate goes direct in ebook deal

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[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Ten picked for Booktrust Best New Illustrators 2011

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[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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HarperCollins acquires Jermaine Jackson title

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[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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New iBooks update opens door to fully illustrated publishing

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[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Harvill Secker to publish Nanjing Heroes

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[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Anjelica Huston memoir to Simon & Schuster

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[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Random House UK to stay outside of agency despite US move

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[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ The New York Times | 2011-03-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ The Bookseller | 2011-02-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Donaldson, Hutchinson and MacPhail win Royal Mail Awards

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[ The Bookseller | 2011-02-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Operating income leaps 40% for S&S worldwide

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[ The Bookseller | 2011-02-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Debut author wins Waterstone's Children's Book Prize

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[ The Bookseller | 2011-02-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ The Bookseller | 2011-02-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ The Bookseller | 2011-02-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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