The US government is trying to stop the merger of two of the world's biggest publishers – but will it help authors?

By Agata Mrva-Montoya, Lecturer, Department of Media and Communications, University of Sydney

When Allen Lane set out to make cheap paperbacks for commuters in the 1930s, no one imagined he was building what would become the biggest publishing house we’ve ever seen.

The company he founded became Penguin Books, which in turn became Penguin Random House, following a merger in 2013. Now, in a deal first announced in November 2020, Bertelsmann, the parent company of Penguin Random House, wants to buy another publishing behemoth, Simon & Schuster.

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