‘Bad for competition’: Stephen King pushes back against Penguin and Simon & Schuster merger
Novelist Stephen King has slammed the proposed merger of Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster, deeming it “bad for competition”.
Acting as a witness at a Washington DC anti-trust trial this week, the man behind The Shining and It said he believed the “the move would be bad for competition in the industry”.
The argument from the publishing houses that a tie-up would not impact competition as they would still be able to bid against each other for rights to novels and stories.
Discussing this argument King said: “You might as well say you’re going to have a husband and wife bidding against each other for the same house,” according to journalists in the court.
The companies first announced plans to merge back back in 2020, with US the justice department suing to block the acquisition in late 2021.
“American authors and consumers will pay the price of this anti-competitive merger – lower advances for authors and ultimately fewer books and less variety for consumers,” said US Attorney General Merrick Garland at the time of the announcement.
Penguin currently operates around 300 imprints worldwide and has 15,000 new releases a year, far more than the other four major U.S. publishers.
With its $2.2bn proposed acquisition of Simon & Schuster, the US government have argued that the deal would give Penguin close to half the market for the acquisition of publishing rights to “anticipated top-selling books”, adding that its next largest competitor would be less than half the size.
Rather than concerns solely over harm to consumers, the Department of Justice said the acquisition could be detrimental to authors, creating a monopsony, as opposed to a monopoly.
Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster were not immediately available for comment.