The conglomeration of the French publishing industry

André Schiffrin in Eurozine on the (all-too-familiar) recent history of the French publishing industry.

The problem that arises in all these countries is: when you have bought a company that makes two or three per cent you want it to make ten or twelve per cent. Hachette wants ten per cent; Editis wants fifteen, as does Bertelsmann. The consequences can be felt at every level, beginning with the choice of books to be published, the print-runs required and, in the end, redundancies. For the first time in Western Europe, ideas are being evaluated, not in terms of their importance, but in terms of their profitability.

Of course with everything there is opportunity. Open Letter hopes to live in this space:

This is a very serious kind of censorship and one that is very difficult to bypass. Nevertheless there is, in all of this, a note of optimism. . .This is the setting up, all over the place, of small publishing companies that welcome books which, for ideological reasons, have been refused by major publishers.