Random House Publishing is the world’s largest book publisher for general interest books. Random House which started out in the 1920s, now sells about 10,000 book titles every year with over 500 million books sold annually. The company was named Random House as its founders anticipated just publishing a few books of random choices. Random House has now published a wide variety of popular books from most of the world’s leading authors including best-selling authors like Dan Brown and Danielle Steel, and Nobel Prize winners like Alice Munro.
Here are some interesting facts about Random House Publishing:
1. In late 2012, Random House Publishing and fellow publishing giant Penguin agreed to merge operations in a £2.4 billion merger deal, and in 2013, they became the world’s largest publishing company, named Penguin Random House, retaining both their brand names. The joint company is co-owned by Bertelsmann and Pearson. Penguin Random House is estimated to control over 40 percent of the trade book business in the United States and earn revenues of over $4 billion annually. It is believed the two traditional publishing companies joined forces in order to combat the growing influence of Amazon and other online bookstores.
2. Random House Publishing publishes everything from children’s books, classics, general fiction, self-help books, to reference books and dictionaries. The New York based company has six main divisions that cater to a large variety of books, including Crown Publishing Group, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, Random House Publishing Group, Random House Children’s Books, Digital Publishing Group and Random House Value Publishing. There are also about 200 independent imprints under the Penguin Random House brand, as well as several international branches.
3. Most of the recipients of the Nobel Prize in literature have been authors under the Random House or Penguin label. Last year’s talented Nobel Prize winner Alice Munro was another Random House author whose work was published by Random House imprints and Penguin. Several of the literary Pulitzer prizes have also been awarded to Random House books. According to the company’s website, about 70 Nobel Prize winners and 129 Pulitzer Prize winners have been books published under the Penguin Random House brand or their imprints.
4. Random House is more than just a book publisher. It also has a film and television production division called Random House Studio. Besides movies and TV shows, this branch of the publishing company also creates media content such as content for video games, social networks, and mobile platforms. ‘One Day’ and ‘Reservation Road’ are a couple of the films produced under Random House’s book-to-film unit.
5. Penguin Random House also has a self-publishing platform for authors- the infamous Author Solutions. This self-publishing service is promoted by Penguin/Random as ‘supported self-publishing’, while it is widely bashed by others for being a vanity press that attempts to dupe authors. Nevertheless, this self-publishing wing has helped many authors- according to the company website, about 180,000 authors have self-published over 225,000 books with the help of Author Solutions. The platform offers pre-publishing guidance for new authors, help with formatting, covers, designs and illustrations, wide distribution across many e-bookstores, and also book marketing and promotional services.
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CS Rajan is a freelance writer who loves to write on various topics, and is currently working on her first novel.