Many have alternately laughed and cried at the industry’s recent soap opera: the PRH-Simon & Schuster merger trial. Seeing top CEOs profess their own ineptitude, declaring the industry they dominate to be little more than a crapshoot, was enough to make you pinch your nose and sigh; these are supposed to be the adults in the room, after all. Or that’s what I supposed, as someone who aspires to work at one of these companies.

I should turn to an independent publishing house for my career ambitions, right? That’s what many might say. I have written on this very blog about the virtues of indies. I too should jump on the barricades and focus on ‘passion over profit’, with the books I work on ‘limited to just 1,000 copies per print-run’, as Kintaro opined last year – shouldn’t I?

“There can be no nobility in poverty of knowledge for a creative and intellectual industry. This is a major claim The Big Five can make.”

Tom Bonnick’s talk at The Bookseller’s Children’s conference, ‘Why I moved from an indie to one of the big five’, explained why he chose to leave his career at Nosy Crow for industry behemoth Harper Collins. This was a fresh perspective in an environment which can easily fetishise indies. We love the underdog; explaining why you opted for the over-dog could be a thankless task.

With Bonnick’s career being solely in the independent sector, there was a ceiling to his growth. A plurality of indie houses wouldn’t solve this, noting the founders of Nosy Crow came from corporate publishing and had ‘a more rounded view of the industry’. Just as there is no nobility in poverty, to which any struggling indie is likely to attest with 36% fearing closure in recent years, there can be no nobility in poverty of knowledge for a creative and intellectual industry. This is a major claim The Big Five can make.

Bonnick mentions the value to be found in the different departments he interacts with at Harper Collins, many of which didn’t exist at Nosy Crow. For example, the dedicated data and analysis team, the significantly larger list he can work with, the international colleagues whose knowledge he can make use of (for an industry getting on board with sensitivity editing, the value of international offices should be obvious). 

Moreover, whilst indies are much lauded for taking chances, they’re the ones who can afford it least in a risk averse industry. Janet Grant notes that: ‘Risk aversion, once it sets in, permeates a publishing house’. If you want to take a chance on that marketing idea nobody’s tried yet, or put forward that amazing submission that might be overlooked etc. it is the people with money who can afford to do it. Any shyness in The Big Five that exists currently, need not be the given for the future.

Harper Collins’ revenue for 2021 was $1.985 billion. The expertise and resources this brings is hard to compete with and should not be treated as trivial. That Bonnick found this change necessary after 11 years experience, shows the tremendous value corporate publishing can provide.

My point isn’t to denigrate indies. But in our zeal for the little guy, we can ignore the fact that The Big Five rule the roost for a reason. For hopefuls like myself, these are natural destinations to orient our career towards.

And that’s okay.