Aspects of a Writer Project: The Writing Life Plan

The Big Five Publishers

The Big Five refers to the five largest trade book publishers in the United States.These five publishing companies account for nearly all trade book publishing in the United States due to their enormous size and ownership of many subsidiaries and imprints. They encompass about 80% of the U.S. trade publishing market.

Imprints

An imprint of a publisher is a trade name under which it publishes work. In essence, they are smaller companies that fall under the bigger umbrella which is the overall publishing company. Imprints typically are narrow in scope when it comes to the content that they publish. They will focus on a certain mission or have a defining character. For example, a small imprint may only publish young adult fiction, but the overall publishing company that this imprint falls beneath will publish everything ranging from children's books to cookbooks to nonfiction history texts. 

A large publisher will often have multiple imprints in order to market works to different demographics of consumers. These imprints act like brand names for the consumers, becoming recognizable, and therefore buyable, to a targeted group of potential customers. The Big Five publishing houses encompass a multitude of smaller imprints.

A Little About the Big Five

Penguin Random House is an international publishing house with nearly 275 editorially and creatively independent publishing imprints. It was formed in 2013 when Penguin Group and Random House merged into one publishing company. Annually, this company publishes about 15,000 print books and around 70,000 digital books.
A few of Penguin Random House’s notable imprints include:
HarperCollins Publishers is owned by News Corporation, which is based in New York. It is the second-largest consumer book publisher in the world, with over 120 imprints. This company publishes about 10,000 new books each year across 16 languages. 
The umbrella of HarperCollins Publishing includes many imprints, such as:
Macmillan has been in business since 1843 and is currently a division of the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, a privately-owned media company headquartered in Germany. The company operates in over 70 countries worldwide.
Some of Macmillan’s imprints include:
Founded in 1924, Simon & Schuster’s first publication was a crossword puzzle book, the first of its kind and an instant bestseller. Many years and many owners later, S&S became a part of the CBS Corporation. Today, this company has 35 imprints and publishes around 2,000 titles each year.
A few of the imprints under the Simon & Schuster umbrella are: 
Headquartered in New York, Hachette Book Group is a leading US trade publisher and a division of the third largest trade and educational book publisher in the world, Hachette Livre. Hachette Livre is owned by the Lagardère Group, a French media company. Every year, HBG publishes over 1,600 books in print or digital format.
The Hachette Book Group has many imprints associated with it, including:

Getting Their Attention as an Author

Firstly, these are the biggest names in the American publishing industry (and in some cases, the world), so to be published by these companies is extremely difficult. Do not feel upset if a manuscript is turned down by them or their affiliates. However, in order for an author and their manuscript to give the best possible presentation, here are some tips.In addition, Penguin Random House’s website has a page titled “How Can I Get Published?,” which is a great resource to look at.

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