Penguin Random House Should Buy Substack

When Penguin Random House began its attempt to buy Simon & Schuster, most reactions fell into two camps: mild resignation or bitter resentment. As far as I can tell, no one outside of the buyer and seller found much to be excited about. 

Long decades of consolidation in publishing have felt as inevitable as they have been hard for the average reader to understand. This would have been another in a long line of mergers that added names and punctuation to the spines of books, but really nothing meaningful to the reading life of the average book-lover. In fact, it seemed about the most boring way for the world’s largest book publisher to spend $2.2 billion dollars. Put aside for the moment that most mergers don’t end up being worth it. Let’s say that this one did: would the world of books and reading be any better at all for anyone that is not PRH? Hard to see how.

On an episode of the Book Riot podcast, I wondered aloud about what would be an exciting or interesting use of that money. What new thing might a titan of this industry do that wasn’t just getting 9% bigger? I didn’t have a good idea then, and I don’t really think PRH does either. Or at least the people who thought this was a good idea aren’t around to think of something else.  

But I think I do have an idea, and I only need a little more than 25% of Simon & Schuster’s asking price to go get it. Here’s a hint: you’re using it right now.