ENTRIES TAGGED "Pearson"
Penguin Random House: Parsing the messages
Using a word cloud to get a better sense of what the executives are emphasizing
Word clouds offer a different way of viewing a document. Sometimes they shed more light on what the author is really emphasizing. You’ve probably already read the merger messages sent by Random House’s Markus Dohle and Penguin’s John Makinson. I’m sure each of those letters were edited by quite a few people before they were sent. They’ve been scoured and polished till just the right message was communicated.
So what do they look like in word cloud view? I spliced the two documents together and the result is shown below.
It’s not surprising that much of the emphasis is on the “company” and its name. Look a bit closer and you’ll also see that “authors” also appears frequently. What about “digital” though? It’s there…you just have to look closely. Very closely.
Penguin Random House: How big is big enough?
It should be less about Amazon and more about going direct
Call me skeptical but I feel the merger between Penguin and Random House is less about creating “greater scale” and more about simple consolidation in a shrinking industry. Which organization is more likely to create the truly innovative, disruptive products of tomorrow’s publishing industry: a behemoth like Penguin Random House or some start-up working out of the proverbial garage? My money’s on the latter.
And if it’s really all about creating scale to deal better with Amazon, well, how big is big enough? Aren’t either one of those operations already large enough to manage Amazon? If not, are the two combined really going to make a difference there?
I’m not convinced the way forward for the big six is to get even bigger so they can push back on Amazon. The real solution is to create another distribution channel so they’re not as dependent upon Amazon tomorrow as they are today. It’s called a direct channel and none of the big six are making much progress building one out. Yes, it requires a strong consumer brand. Yes, it means they need to build a site that offers compelling reasons for consumers to buy from it rather than Amazon, which is no small task. And yes, it also means they need to abandon DRM.
Instead of just merging I’d rather see one of the big six stand up like this small publisher and say “we’ve walked on eggshells for far too long…it’s time for us to get serious about building that direct channel and not worry about how our existing channel partners will react.”