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When companies testify in open court, the public gets rare insight into how things actually work. Drawing on the 2022 Penguin vs DOJ antitrust case, this lays bare the book industry: the Big Five spend most of their money on advances for celebrities and franchise authors, and make their re

Danu Poyner

· 1 minute

The economics of book publishing
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When companies testify in open court, the public gets rare insight into how things actually work. Drawing on the 2022 Penguin vs DOJ antitrust case, this lays bare the book industry: the Big Five spend most of their money on advances for celebrities and franchise authors, and make their real money on those plus repeat backlist bestsellers and children's classics — which quietly fund every other book we think of when we think of publishing, most of which sell fewer than 1,000 copies.

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Danu Poyner

Danu is a writer and founder of Grokkist, a learning community in the deepest sense. His work centres on coherence, curiosity, and helping people make sense of themselves in relation to ideas, experience, and one another.

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