On October 29, publishing giants Penguin and Random House completed an agreement to merge. The result is a worldwide publishing mega-house with an estimated $4 billion in revenue. The new entity includes all the publishing divisions and imprints of Penguin and Random House in the United States, Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, India, South Africa, as well as their companies in China, Spain, Latin America, and Germany. According to the official press release, the imprints of both publishers will continue to operate with the autonomy they already have, including the preservation of their distinct editorial identities.

Amid speculation that the merger might be problematic for the industry, Markus Dohle, CEO of Penguin Random House (PRH), and John Makinson, Chairman of PRH, said that they will work toward keeping brick-and-mortar bookstores in business, staying on top of innovation and publishing technology, and overall maintaining a “personal touch.” In separate interviews with Publishers Weekly, they acknowledged that integration of the two houses will not be easy, but that it can be done.

“We will need to forge a personality for this company…. It will take us a while to get there,” wrote Makinson. “But I have no doubt that we have everything we need to make this a company of which we can all be proud.”

Critics include the Authors Guild, which wrote to its members in early November describing the merger as “unsettling” and suggesting that antitrust officials maintain a close eye on the goliath publisher. In an editorial published at the Daily Beast, Robert Gottlieb, chairman of the Trident Media Group, said the merger is “like a tsunami in the industry forcing many publishers to either merge or lock alliances in order to compete.” Other eminent voices in the publishing industry, such as Andrew Wylie of the Wylie Agency, predict growth and diversity. This monumental change may very well lead more authors and agents to bring work to independent publishers.

Sources: Publishers Weekly, The Daily Beast

Read this piece published at the Daily Beast for a more comprehensive account of the possible negative effects of this merger: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/11/27/the-victims-of-the-penguin-random-house-merger-literary-agents.html