The Big Five Family Tree: Book Publishers

Welcome to Publishing Perspectives!

I’ll be talking about all things publishing. Let’s start with an overview of the publishing world. It may seem like there are a zillion big publishing houses out there, but many are owned by the same mega corporations. Many authors desire to be signed with a ‘major publisher’… who are the really really really big guys?

The Big Five traditional publishers consist of Penguin Random House, Macmillan, HarperCollins, Hachette, and Simon &Schuster. Each of these companies own multiple brands. Let’s take a look at the family tree, or at least some of it. These guys are really big and changing all the time so it’s impossible for this list to be comprehensive and accurate for the lifetime of the internet. But here’s a bit of what it looks like today.

Hachette Book Group is a division of Hachette Livre (based in France), which is a subsidiary of the French media company Lagardere. Hachette owns:

• Little, Brown and Company
  • Mulholland Books
  • Back Bay Books
  • Lee Boudreaux Books
• Little, Brown and Company Books for Young Readers
  • Poppy
  • LB Kids
• Grand Central Publishing
  • Twelve
  • Live & Style
  • Forever
  • Forever Yours
  • Vision
• Hachette Nashville
  • Faith Words
  • Center Street
  • Jericho Books
• Orbit
  • Yen Press
  • Redhook
• Hachette Audio
• Hachette Digital

HarperCollins Publishers is a subsidiary of News Corp. They own:

• Amistad
• Anthony Bourdain Books
• Avon
  • Avon Impulse
  • Avon Inspire
  • Avon Red
• Balzer + Bray
• Bible Gateway
• Bourbon Street Books
• Broadside Books
• Dey Street
• Ecco Books
• FaithGateway
• Greenwillow Books
• Harlequin
  • Carina Press
  • Harlequin Books
  • Harlequin TEEN
  • HQN Books
  • Kimani Press
  • Love Inspired
  • MIRA Books
  • Worldwide Mystery
• Harper Books
  • Harper Business
  • Harper Design
  • HarperFestival
  • Harper Luxe
  • Harper Paperbacks
  • Harper Perennial
  • HarperTeen
  • HarperTeen Impulse
  • Harper Voyager
  • HarperAudio
  • HarperCollins 360
  • HarperElixir
  • HarperOne
  • HarperWave
  • HarperCollins Children’s Books
• Katherine Tegen Books
• Olive Tree
• Walden Pond Press
• William Morrow
  • William Morrow Cookbooks
  • William Morrow Paperbacks
• Witness
• Thomas Nelson
  • Nelson Books
  • Grupo Nelson
  • Tommy Nelson
  • W Publishing Group
  • WestBow Press
• Zondervan
  • Blink
  • Editorial Vida
  • Zonderkidz
  • Zondervan Academic

Macmillan Publishers is owned by the German company Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck. They own:

• Bedford / St. Martin’s
• Bloomsbury USA
• The College Board
• Drawn and Quarterly
• Entangled Publishing
• Farrar, Straus &Giroux
  • North Point Press
  • Hill and Wang
  • Faber and Faber Inc.
• Fiewel & Friends
• First Second
• Flatiron Books
• Graywolf Press
• Guinness World Records
• Hayden-McNeil
• Henry Holt and Company
  • Metropolitan Books
  • Times Books
  • Holt Paperbacks
  • Henry Holt Books for Young Readers
• Imprint
• Kingfisher
• Macmillan Higher Education
• Page Street Publishing Co.
• Palgrave Macmillan
• Papercutz
• Picador
• Priddy Books
• Roaring Brook Press
• Rodale
• Martin’s Press
  • Griffin
  • Minotaur
  • Martin’s Press Paperbacks
  • Let’s Go
  • Thomas Dunne Books
  • Truman Tally Books
  • Palgrave Macmillan
• Square Fish
• Tor / Forge
  • Starscape
  • Tor Teen Books
  • Tor Children’s
• Macmillan Audio
• Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group
• Walker & Company
• H. Freeman
• Worth Publishers

Penguin Random House is owned by German media conglomerate Bertelsmann and has nearly 250 imprints and publishing houses so I won’t list them all here! They own:

• Random House Publishing Group
  • Ballantine Books
  • Bantam
  • Delacorte
  • Del Ray
  • Del Ray / Lucas Books
  • Dell
  • The Dial Press
  • The Modern Library
  • One World
  • Presido Press
  • Random House Trade Group
  • Random House Trade Paperbacks
  • Spectra
  • Spiegel & Grau
  • Villard Books
• Random House Value Publishing
  • Children’s Classics
  • Crescent Books
  • Derrydale
  • Gramercy Books
  • Testament Books
  • Wings BOoks
• Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
  • Alfred A. Knopf
  • Anchor Books
  • Doubleday
  • Everyman’s Library
  • Nan A. Talese
  • Pantheon Books
  • Schocken Books
  • Vintage
• Crown Publishing Group
  • Amphoto Books
  • Back Stage Books
  • Billboard Books
  • Broadway
  • Broadway Business
  • Clarkson Potter
  • Convergent
  • Crown
  • Crown Business
  • Crown Forum
  • Doubleday Religion
  • Harmony Books
  • Hogarth Press
  • Potter Craft
  • Potter Style
  • Ten Speed Press
  • Three Rivers Press
  • Tricycle Press
  • Shaye Areheart Books
  • Waterbook Multnomah
  • Watson – Guptill
• Penguin Group US
• Dorling Kindersley
• Mass Market Paperbacks
• Digital Publishing Group
  • Alibib
  • Flirt
  • Fodor’s Travel
  • Hydra
  • Listening Library
  • Living Language
  • Loveswept
  • Princeton Review
  • Random House Audio
  • Randon House Large Print
• Random House Children’s Books
  • Kids@Random
  • Beginner Books
  • David Fickling Books
  • Nickeldeon Books
  • Delacorte Press
  • Golden Books
  • Prima Games
  • Step Into Reading
  • Schwartz & Wade
  • Stepping Stone Books
  • Sylvan Learning
  • Wendy Lamb Books
• Penguin Young Readers Group, U.S.

Simon and Schuster is owned by the media company CBS Corporation. They own:

• Aladdin
• Altheneum Books for Young Readers
• Atria
• Beach Lane Books
• Chicken Soup for the Soul
• Folger Shakespeare Library
• Free Press
• Gallery Books
• Hooked on Phonics
• Howard Books
• Kaplan Publishing
• Little Simon
• Margaret K. McElderry Books
• Merck
• Paula Wiseman Books
• Pocket Books
• Reader’s Digest
• Ripley Publishing
• Scribner
• Simon & Schuster
• Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
• Simon Pulse
• Simon Spotlight
• Threshold Editions
• Touchstone

How many of these names are you familiar with? Were you surprised at who owns what?