Three Major Publishers in Five Years?

Over the weekend, HarperStudio publisher Bob Miller made waves with his predictions for the future of publishing.

Here’s one surprising quote: “The large publishing houses will continue to reduce overhead as profits shrink in the years ahead. Counter trend: Publishers will be looking for mergers and acquisitions to compensate for those shrinking profits. The Big Six could be the Big Three within five years … These companies will continue to focus more resources on fewer titles, using their strengths as large-scale marketers and distributors to publish brand-names. Title count at the largest houses could drop by as much as fifty percent over the next five years.”

Miller founded the Hyperion imprint for Disney, and ran it for 17 years. In 2008 he left that publisher to start HarperStudio, an imprint making some innovative adjustments to the traditional publishing model. One year ago, we interviewed Miller about his thoughts on returnable books.